From: tgray@IGC.APC.ORG (Tom Gray)
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Subject: IPS: Global Warming & Famine
Date: 18 Nov 92 17:36:22 GMT
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/* Written 12:09 am  Nov  8, 1992 by newsdesk@igc.apc.org in igc:ips.englibrary
*/
Copyright Inter Press Service 1992, all rights reserved.  Permission to re-
print within 7 days of original date only with permission from 'newsdesk'.

Title: CHINA: Global warming could spell starvation


london, nov 05 (ips/lucy johnson) -- within the lifetime of
children born today, the earth's climate could heat up to levels
that would wipe out large areas of china's forests and crops and
put world food security at risk.

world-wide measures now being implemented may be too late to stop
greenhouse gases warming up china's climate by 2c by the year
2050. the resulting drop in moisture and rise in sea-level would
shrink areas of fertile land and cause major food shortages.

the facts, released thursday in london in a report by the
environmental group world wide fund for nature (wwf), are some of
the first concrete figures to show the scale of the potential
global warming disaster.

next week, international delegates of the inter-governmental
panel of climate change will meet in zimbabwe to mull over these
disquieting figures.

they will also be faced with the challenge of talking the 150
countries that signed the climate change convention at the earth
summit in rio this year into standing by their ringing
declarations -- only four countries have so far ratified.

wwf's report zoomed in on china, but speakers at the press launch
said the wider panorama was equally worrying.

each year six billion tonnes of carbon dioxide are spewed into
the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels. they combine with other
greenhouse gases, such as methane, nitrous oxide and halocarbons,
to form a thick mattress of gases that traps heat in the lower
layers of the atmosphere.

scientists first sounded the alarm when they noticed that a 26
percent increase in carbon dioxide emissions since pre-industrial
times and an array of new artificial halocarbons in the atmosphere
was coinciding with a 0.5c rise in temperature across the world.

using data provided by chinese scientists, wwf scientists have
built up a scenario of probable future greenhouse emissions that
would warm up the planet by 2.5c by 2100 -- a rate of warming five
times higher than over the last 100 years.

china, which is currently responsible for 11 percent of global
carbon dioxide emmissions and looks set to add to this with one of
the world's fastest growing economies, is both protaganist and
victim.

''climate change will impact enormously on china. there is a big
need for measures to adapt,'' says adam markham, head of pollution
at wwf's international headquarters in geneva, who spoke at the
press launch. (more/ips)

china: global warming could spell starvation(2-e)

china: global (2)

if it does not, china risks losing wheat and rice-growing steppe
lands to desert in xianjing province in the north west, and
damaging the delicate eco-system of the alpine forests that fringe
the tibetan plateau.

sea-level rises of half a metre could flood the fertile alluvial
soils of east china and destroy the world's oldest sustained
agricultural system.

it would also threaten china's major industrial cities, with
their combined population of 28 million, many of which sit in the
deltas of china's largest rivers.

the effects would not just be catastrophic on humans, but would
also seriously diminish the chances of survival for some of the
world's most threatened species.

the giant panda, the hallmark of wwf which has been fighting to
save it for the last 15 years, could lose its home, as climate
changes whittle away at its precious bamboo forests.

''designating protected areas assumes a stable climate. but many
species live in areas with a predicted climate change,'' says
markham. ''for the pandas this could be disastrous, there are
already less than 1,000 pandas left in the wild.''

mike hulme, a scientist from the climate research unit at the
university of east anglia, who worked on the wwf project, warned
that even emergency measures implemented now could not reverse
much of the damage done to the atmosphere by years of carbon
dioxide emmissions.

''it's got to the stage when we are now committed globally to
future climate and sea level rises irrespective of new measures,''
he said.

but immediate action by international governments would have a
resounding long term impact. wwf have compared best and worst case
scenarios, and found the impact of environmental respect would
start to show by the year 2100. by that time, today's measures
could cut the predicted global warming in half.

''china has a choice either it can take the most polluting forms
of development from the west and exacerbate emmissions or it can
leap frog ahead to future technology,'' says hulme.

environmentally-friendly technology is up to 10-15 percent more
expensive than mainstream, high-pollutant technology, but the
future costs of cleaning up and importing ever-diminishing world
reserves of food would cost china considerably more.
(end/ips/en/lj/mf/92)

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