IE : Greenhouse gas emissions hit danger mark, says scientist : Oct 10, 2007
Greenhouse gas emissions hit danger mark, says scientist
Reuters
Posted online: Wednesday, October 10, 2007 at 0000 hrs
SYDNEY, October 9: The global economic boom has accelerated greenhouse gas
emissions to a dangerous threshold not expected for a decade and could
potentially cause irreversible climate change, said one of Australia’s
leading scientists.
Tim Flannery, a world recognised climate change scientist and Australian of
the Year in 2007, said a UN international climate change report due in
November will show that greenhouse gases have already reached a dangerous
level. Flannery said the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
report will show that greenhouse gas in the atmosphere in mid-2005 had
reached about 455 parts per million of carbon dioxide equivalent – a level
not expected for another 10 years.
“We thought we’d be at that threshold within about a decade,” Flannery told
Australian television late on Monday.
“We thought we had that much time. But the new data indicates that in about
mid-2005 we crossed that threshold,” he said. “What the report establishes
is that the amount of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere is already above the
threshold that could potentially cause dangerous climate change.”
Flannery, from Macquarie University and author of the climate change book
The Weather Makers, said he had seen the raw data which will be in the IPCC
Synthesis Report.
He said the measurement of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere included not
just carbon dioxide, but also nitrous oxide, methane and hydrofluorocarbons
(HFCs). All these gases were measured and then equated into potentially one
gas to reach a general level.
“They’re all having an impact. Probably 75 percent is carbon dioxide but the
rest is that mixed bag of other gases,” he said.
Flannery said global economic expansion, particularly in China and India,
was a major factor behind the unexpected acceleration in greenhouse gas
levels.
“We’re still basing that economic activity on fossil fuels. You know, the
metabolism of that economy is now on a collision course, clearly, with the
metabolism of our planet,” he said.
Publication : IE; Section : InterNational; Pg : 15; Date : 10/10/07
URL : http://www.indianexpress.com/story/226541.html