EU sets out global climate change mitigation agenda The European Commission has set out a road-map for reducing the increase in global warming and for mitigating its impacts. Climate change is a real threat that calls for a long-term, global response states the EC. The Kyoto Protocol, which comes into force on 16th February 2005 and legally obliges industrialised countries to meet targets with regard to their emissions of greenhouse gases is just a first step in its mitigation. EU heads of state and government will discuss medium and longer-term emission reduction strategies including targets during their Spring Council 2005 (22nd-23rd March). As a primer for this the Commission has produced a cost-benefit analysis which takes account both of environmental and competitiveness considerations. This was published yesterday (9th February) in an official EU Communication, accompanied by a background paper, entitled ‘Winning the battle against global climate change.’ In the latter paper, the EC states definitively that ‘climate change is happening’. Over the past century, global average temperature has risen by about 0.6°C, and mean temperature in Europe has increased by more than 0.9°C. Globally, the 10 warmest years on record all occurred after 1991. Current greenhouse gas emissions will lead to further temperature increases during the 21st century. The overwhelming scientific consensus is that the cause is emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities. Due to slow reactions by the climate system, past and current greenhouse gas emissions will lead to a further rise in temperature during the 21st century. In addition, emissions are expected to keep increasing over the coming decades. If no action is taken to reduce them, global temperatures are expected to increase by 1.4 to 5.8°C above 1990 temperatures by the year 2100, and by 2 to 6.3°C in Europe . Even small temperature increases will have an impact upon communities and businesses. Particularly vulnerable to climatic changes are low-lying coastal areas and river catchments, mountainous areas, areas with high risks of increasing numbers of storms and hurricanes, and climate-sensitive economic sectors such as agriculture, forestry and tourism. The EC says that, as yet, few Member States have examined the need to reduce vulnerability and to increase their resilience to climate change effects. Adaptation to climate change will require further research to predict the impacts to enable the public and private sector to develop adaptation options. These impacts differ from region to region and include flood protection measures, appropriate land use methods, adjusted building codes and urban plans, insurance coverage. Adaptation will also entail the early prediction of more frequent and more damaging natural disasters. Read the EC report
•Date:
10th February 2005 • Region: W.Europe/UK •Type:
Article •Topic:
BC general |
