Melting Ice Caps Will Submerge Cities, Report Warns
Monday, December 8, 2003

Measures called for by the Kyoto Protocol are far too weak to prevent the melting of ice caps and other consequences of global warming, according to a new report released at a meeting in Milan of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change.

The report, produced by the German Advisory Council on Global Change, warns that even if the protocol comes into force, it will have only a "marginal attenuating effect" on climate change and measures at least four times stronger than Kyoto are needed to prevent "dangerous climatic changes."

If the world's average temperature rises more than 2 degrees Celsius, the study says, the West Antarctic ice sheet and the Greenland ice cap would start to melt away, increasing sea levels worldwide by up to 30 feet and submerging many of the world's largest cities.

To prevent such a disaster, the report advises that industrialized countries would have to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 20 percent by 2020, and by up to 60 percent by mid-century. The Kyoto Protocol would cut emissions by only 5 percent by 2012 at best, the report says.

Global emissions, meanwhile, are on track to increase by as much as 75 percent by 2020, according to former U.K. Environment Minister Michael Meacher (Geoffrey Lean, London Independent, Dec. 7).

On Friday, scientists told reporters at the Milan conference that Western Europe may get colder as a result of global warming, because the melting Arctic ice cap is cooling the warm ocean current that is largely responsible for Europe's mild weather. After five or more decades of increasingly warm weather, Western Europe may see a sharp decline in its temperatures, they said.

"To mitigate the advancement, the increase, the acceleration of that warming, we would need to take really radical steps, far more extreme than the Kyoto Protocol on global warming is proposing," said Jonathan Bamber of the University of Bristol (Emily Backus, Associated Press/Yahoo! News, Dec. 7).

A similar warning came Saturday from an Indian scientist, who said that three of the country's largest cities could be under water within two decades unless global warming was brought under control.

"If the warming continues, there will be about half to one meter increase in sea level by 2020 and cities like Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai will be completely submerged," said Rajiv Nigam, who works at the Geological Oceanography Division in the western state of Goa.

A one-meter rise could cause $108 billion in property damage in Goa alone, he said. "If this is the quantum of damage in a small state like Goa that has only two districts, imagine the extent of property loss in metros like Bombay," Nigam added (Agence France-Presse/TerraDaily, Dec. 6).
Copyright, National Journal Group, Year.