U.N. Report Forecasts Crises Brought On by Global Warming

Poor Countries Would Bear Brunt of Climate Consequences

Eric Pianin / Washington Post 20feb01

Rising global temperatures already responsible for shrinking glaciers and vanishing permafrost eventually could touch off climate changes that would literally alter ocean currents, wipe away huge portions of Alpine snowcaps and aid the spread of cholera and malaria, according to a study released yesterday.

In the most comprehensive look yet at the existing and long-term effects of global warming, the report by a United Nations panel warned of the potential for large-scale and irreversible climate changes -- including large reductions in the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets and a substantial slowing of the circulation of warm water in the North Atlantic.

The report also warns of devastating droughts, floods, violent storms and the spread of cholera and malaria. It concluded that poor countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America with limited resources would bear the brunt of the most extreme climate changes.

The report said that economic losses from natural catastrophes increased from about $4 billion a year in the 1950s to $40 billion in 1999, with about a quarter of the losses occurring in developing countries.

"Most of the Earth's people will be on the losing side," said Harvard University environmental scientist James J. McCarthy, who co-chaired the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which issued the report in Geneva.

The 1,000-page report follows the group's warning in January that Earth's average temperature could rise by as much as 10.4 degrees over the next 100 years -- the most rapid change in 10 millennia and more than 60 percent higher than the same group predicted less than six years ago.

Taken together, the two studies provide the strongest evidence yet that most of the global warming in the past 50 years has been caused by human activities, primarily the burning of oil, gasoline and coal, which produces carbon dioxide and other gases that trap heat in the atmosphere.

While some scientists disagree over the panel's methodology and findings, the release of the latest report is likely to put added pressure on the Bush administration to develop a policy to address the mounting threat of global warming.

President Bush and his advisers have made increased domestic energy production a top priority, but have had little to say about the related issue of cleaning up the environment. At the administration's request, United Nations officials agreed last week to delay the next round of formal global warming treaty negotiations, set for May, until this summer.

The United States and other industrialized countries have declined so far to ratify the so-called Kyoto Protocol, an agreement first negotiated in 1997 that would require about three dozen developed nations to cut combined emissions of greenhouse gases to 5 percent below their 1990 levels by 2012.

Bush and his advisers have opposed the treaty, saying that it would put U.S. manufacturers at a disadvantage and hinder efforts to boost domestic energy supplies. The White House declined to comment on yesterday's report.

Rafe Pomerance, a State Department official in the Clinton administration who specialized in global warming issues, said that even if Bush eventually embraces the Kyoto Protocol, the treaty governs emissions only through the coming decade. "Every delay means the system is committed to more and more warming," he said.

S. Fred Singer, professor emeritus of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia and a Reagan administration environmental scientist, charged that the U.N. study grossly exaggerated the problem. He said it was based on faulty models that don't conform to existing scientific data from thermometers at weather stations, Earth-circling satellites and high-altitude balloons.

"This report is based on shaky science and is designed to present only the worst possible cases in order to scare politicians and the population and pressure the administration into signing the Kyoto Protocol," Singer said.

Over the weekend, scientists meeting separately in San Francisco said the melting of equatorial glaciers in Africa and Peru was another danger signal of the effects of global warming. They said the white ice caps of Africa's Mount Kilimanjaro and others in Peru and Tibet may be disappearing because of rising surface temperatures.

The U.N. study, conducted by some 700 scientists, warns that "projected climate changes during the 21st century have the potential to lead to future large-scale and possible irreversible changes in Earth systems resulting in impacts at continental and global scales."

Disintegration of the West Antarctic ice sheet or melting of the Greenland ice sheet each could raise global sea levels up to 3 meters over the next 1,000 years, submerge many islands and inundate coastal areas, the report stated. In Europe, rising temperatures could melt the Alpine snowpack.

While the United States would largely escape the worst of the effects, the rise of sea levels would lead to more coastal erosion and flooding, increased risk of damaging storms along much of the Atlantic coast and a higher incidence of malaria, dengue fever and Lyme disease.

A more likely scenario, the study said, is a general reduction in potential crop yields in most tropical and sub-tropical regions, a decrease in the water supply of regions already suffering severe drought, an increase in the number of people exposed to malaria and cholera, widespread increase in the risk of flooding and added pressure on energy sources for air conditioning.

Even as scientists look to the distant future, the report said evidence abounds that global warming already is having a serious impact. The study cites observational evidence, such as shrinking glaciers, thawing permafrost, delayed freezing and earlier break-up of ice on rivers and lakes, longer growing seasons at mid- to high-latitudes and the disappearance of some plants and animals from areas experiencing unusually high temperatures.