PRESS BRIEFING ON GLOBAL WARMING BY UNEP EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

PRESS BRIEFING ON GLOBAL WARMING BY UNEP EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Global warming was not a prognosis for the future; it was an accelerating process today, and in which there would be no winners, only losers, Klaus Töpfer, Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), told correspondents this afternoon, at a Headquarters press briefing.

He added that his presentation today was not intended to signal disaster but dramatic changes deserving urgent attention.

Summaries of two reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) were made available to correspondents at the briefing:  the Third Assessment Report of Working Group I of the Intergovernmental Panel, which describes the current understanding of the climate system and provides estimates of its projected evolution and uncertainties; and a report from a second Working Group from the Intergovernmental Panel titled, "Climate Change 2001:  Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability", which assesses the sensitivity, adaptive capacity, and vulnerability of natural and human systems to climate change. 

The Intergovernmental Panel was founded in 1988, when the UNEP and the World Meteorological Organization decided to concentrate global scientific capacity on assessing the development of climate change.  The Panel's findings were extremely important, particularly in the context of negotiations to ratify the Kyoto Protocol to the 1992 Convention on Climate Change, under which developed countries would reduce their collective emissions of greenhouse gases, Mr. Töpfer explained.  No final conclusion was reached during the last round of these negotiations, held in The Hague in November 2000.  At the request of the United States Government, the resumption of negotiations had been postponed until this summer.

Summarizing the Panel's findings, Mr. Töpfer said that the process of climate change was accelerating with more intensive development.  Increased global warming during the present century would have huge repercussions in all regions of the world.  The findings in the second report were "alarming", he said.

He said that, for example, there had already been a huge decrease in the ice cover in the Arctic, with huge repercussions for the overall ocean system. Sea ice had already shrunk by 10 to 15 percent.  A ship presently on an investigation in the Antarctic region had been able to sail through waters on which there had been an ice cover for centuries.  There had also been a huge increase in desertification, especially in sub-Saharan Africa and in the southern part of Europe heading towards Asia. 

Incidences of abnormal weather, including storms and heavy rains, and droughts had also risen, he said.  In another clear signal of global warming, the vegetation in the Alps had grown as much as four meters in one decade.  There was a high risk that global warming was "feeding" itself.  For example, in permafrost regions where the soil used to be frozen year round, the development

of global warming was changing the permafrost, thereby destabilizing infrastructure and housing in those regions.  The changed permafrost was emitting additional greenhouse gases, especially methane and carbon, which had previously been "fixed" in the ground.

Those facts were not derived from UNEP material, he explained, but rather from the global scientific community.  Publication of the data was not meant to cause nightmares, but to stimulate action.  There were many win-win situations that could change the carbon-intensive energy structure to a less carbon intensive structure.  That did not imply that the world had to return to a medieval lifestyle, but rather that technologies with higher energy efficiencies should be employed. 

A third IPCC report, containing recommendations, would be presented in Accra, Ghana in a few days, he noted.

Hopefully, Mr. Töpfer said, negotiations on the Kyoto Protocol would receive United States support.  That country was a major part of the problem as it was the State with the highest emission of greenhouse gases -- more than

20 tons per capita per year.  Developing countries like India emitted less than one ton of greenhouse gasses per capita per year, and European countries were somewhere in the middle, at up to 10 tons per year.  Thus, the United States must be part of the solution. 

Today's youth might never see snow on the Kilimanjaro Mountain, he went on.  There had been other outstanding signs of the problem, especially in Africa.  In Mauritania, for example, the desert mass was increasing yearly, with serious repercussions for the economic base of that part of the world.  The "poorest of the poor" were suffering most.  They had not caused the problem and did not have the financial or technical resources to solve it.  That was a topic of growing tension between developing and developed countries.  If such problems were not handled correctly, they would come back to haunt the global family of nations. 

Asked when the third report would be issued, Mr. Töpfer said that it was expected next week.  He reiterated that the process was intergovernmental and, thus, governments were involved in both the findings and recommendations. 

Asked whether reparation for the damages had been part of the Panel's recommendations, he said that it had, on two tracks.  One track concerned adaptation, which was a particular problem for least developed countries and small island States.  The consequences of only a very limited increase in sea water temperature, for example, was bleaching and destroying coral reefs.  Those problems directly affected the groundwater of small islands and their ability to fight storms and abnormal weather. 

Thus, he said, adaptation measures were needed to combat the consequences of global warming.  One proposal made at The Hague had called for the creation of an adaptation fund of $1 billion per year for developing countries, especially least developed and small island States, to enable them to combat the consequences of climate change.  Developing countries were convinced that

$1 billion was not enough, while developed countries, which would be responsible for supplying the funds, were hesitant.   

A second topic concerned what was called a "clean development mechanism", involving the release of carbon dioxide, he said.  If technology was made available to decrease emissions worldwide, a country could calculate that against its obligation at home.  For example, if the United States had to decrease its emissions, one way to do so would be by initiating activity in developing countries or trading obligations with other developed countries.  Such technology transfer to bring better energy technology to developing countries would provide the chance for economic growth without growth in carbon dioxide emissions. 

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