Global warming: which way now?

?

The Future

  • The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) formed in 1988, is a joint organisation of the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) and the United Nations Enviroment Programme (UNEP) they collected data:
  • Collected data about the atmosphere
  • Obeserved dea levels and the extent of the ice at the poles and at glaciers in mountain regions
  • Measured greenhouse gases concentrations
  • Used super-computers to try to predict what impacts global warming might hav 
1 of 4

The Future

  • The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) formed in 1988, is a joint organisation of the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) and the United Nations Enviroment Programme (UNEP) they collected data:
  • Collected data about the atmosphere
  • Obeserved dea levels and the extent of the ice at the poles and at glaciers in mountain regions
  • Measured greenhouse gases concentrations
  • Used super-computers to try to predict what impacts global warming might hav 
2 of 4

Too late to act?

  • What the IPCC and others fear is a sequence of events which leads to irreversible  change. They fear that the degree of warming could be so great that it would cause shifts in climate belts which would be irreversible - no matter what is done now or in the future to control carbon emissions. The point beyond which the Earth cannot recover from the effects of carbon emissions even with drastic action.
  • Just a tiny increase in global temperature could have the following catastrophic and irreversible consequences:
  • Rising sea level - Greenpeace estimates that melting of the Artic ice caps caused a rise in sea level of 10-25 cm during the twentieth century 
  • Shutting down the Alantic thermohaline circulation - This will make Europe colder
  • Falling argriculture yields and water shortages - Water shortages will cause wars between countries, with more spreads of cholera 
3 of 4

The Stern View

  • In 2006, the UK government published a review of global warming by Sir Nicholas Stern. It focasedon the impacts of global warming and the actions needed to deal with them. He argued that global warming could be reduced if greenhouse gas emissions are stabilised by 2025, it would cost 1% of the worlds GDP because of investment in new clean technology

UK governmental response

  • Set targets to reduce carbon emissions by 30% by 2020 and 60% by 2050 
  • Pass laws to set carbon reduction targets and monitor them 
  • Invest in green technology, creating 100,000 new jobs 
  • Create a $20 billion World Bank fund to help poor countries adjust to climate change 
4 of 4

Comments

No comments have yet been made

Similar Geography resources:

See all Geography resources »See all Energy sources and security resources »