Inhabitants of rich countries had a footprint four times larger than those of poor countries, said report editor Jonathan Loh. The biggest source of greenhouse-gases remains the US, where CO2 emissions rose 1.3 per cent in 1999. New scientific studies warn of increasingly weird and extreme weather to come. Science a rising trend to higher and more intense rainfall in middle latitudes, including much of Europe and North America. And in a review for WWF, Pier Vellinga, director of the Institute for Environmental Studies at the Vrije University in Amsterdam, forecast an increase in extreme rainstorms worldwide because of a warmer atmosphere, and said that the trend had likely already begun.
Climate change brings about a global redistribution of the costs and benefits of the weather.
The number of people at risk of flooding in northern Europe will double by 2050 and could rise a staggering tenfold by 2080, while southern Europe risks desertification. Among the most dramatic findings for wildlife include the loss of the majority of coastal wetlands as sea levels rise in the Baltic and Mediterranean. These seas have small tidal ranges that result in a narrow inter-tidal strip and low adaptation to variations in sea level. The study predicts that both seas will lose 100 per cent of their inter-tidal wetlands and the Baltic will lose 80 per cent of its salt marshes.