Global Warming—A Way Forward

Global Warming—A Way Forward

In this vast universe of ours, we know of no other place so hospitable to live and its infinite variety. But today, climate change poses a clear and present danger. It threatens every species on earth. Increasing the number of extreme weather events that require international action. The time for leadership and meaningful initiatives is now!

As part of an intergovernmental effort under United Nation leadership, the world’s top scientists have concluded that our climate is changing. And they have issued urgent warnings about our future we can’t afford to ignore. The IPCC reports leave no room for doubt: global warming is a fact! And human activity, including the burning of fossil fuels, industrial emissions and deforestation, are the main cause of climate change and it’s most dangerous side effects. The dramatic rise in greenhouse gases over the last 250 years, particularly carbon dioxide has caused temperatures to rise across the globe and this warming is rejected to accelerate at an alarming and dangerous pace.

Science is a powerful witness. The world is undergoing a dramatic transformation. Dangerous atmospheric changes already observed in measure and will continue for decades. Changes and preservation patterns will intensify drought in some areas and aggravate flooding in others. And as the world’s glaciers disappear and the oceans heat up, global sea levels may rise between 18 and 59 cm by the end of the century. The shrinking of Greenland’s ice sheets and a large scale of l oss of ice of Antarctica could accelerate the problem with unpredictable speed. Small island nations, already victimized by increasing storm surges and beach erosion, could one day be lost to the sea. As climate change disrupts nature’s balance, biodiversi ty suffers, in the oceans and on land. All of earth’s species are threatened. Some may disappear forever.

Climate change could potentially compound growing population pressures on food supplies, already fragile in many places. Over the long term, worldwide agriculture yields will likely decrease drastically in all regions. And as always: the poorest among us are the most vulnerable. Rain-fed Agriculture could drop 50 % by 2020 in some African countries, increasing malnutrition and need for emergency aid.

Nearly 1/6 of the world’s people rely on mountain glaciers for drinking water, crucial supplies which are expected to decline significantly as these glaciers melt away.

44 % of the world’s people live within 150 km of the coast and will be exposed to more frequent and more destructive storms and coastal flooding and rising sea levels which may over time inundate low-lying countries, islands and cities, cities like Alexandria, Calcutta, Dakar, Bangkok and Shanghai, home to hundreds of millions of people. We will have to adopt. Regions that bear the least responsibility for what is happening will be among the hardest hit.