NEW ORLEANS – Friday, the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released it’s second of four summaries comprising the Fourth Assessment Report, which describes the current consensus of the world’s scientific community on climate impacts due to global warming.  The Working Group II Summary for Policymakers, released six years after the prior assessment by the IPCC, evaluates “Climate Change Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability.”  It offers a crucial analysis of how global warming may affect the natural and human systems in each region and how they may or may not be able to cope with the consequences. 

Virginia Burkett, a Louisianan and U.S. Geological Survey scientist studying global warming impacts on coastal systems since 1991, is a lead author of the coastal impacts section of the IPCC Report.  "The Mississippi River delta region is cited frequently in the coastal chapter because of its high vulnerability to accelerated sea level rise and an increase in tropical storm intensity," said Burkett.   "Several chapters address the unique exposure to flooding that will likely occur in the New Orleans region as sea level rise accelerates and hurricanes increase in intensity".  

“If you didn’t like Katrina, you’ll hate global warming,” said Aaron Viles, campaign director for the Gulf Restoration Network.  “We need to take action now to cut carbon and stabilize our climate.”  The report is released as 14 organizations are focusing energies on organizing a rally in New Orleans on the Lower 9^th Ward levee in the Holy Cross Neighborhood Friday, April 13^th at 5:30pm.  The event leads off “STEP IT UP 2007,” a planned national day of climate action, with over 1,200 events planned throughout the country the following day.  Citizens across the country are calling on Congress to “Step It Up” and take the steps necessary to cut carbon 80% by 2050, the amount many scientists say is necessary to avert the worst climate change impacts. “We need the public to come out Friday and show Congress it’s time to heed the science and act,” finished Viles.

The new IPCC report shows that coastal areas highly threatened by climate change and that action is urgently needed:

v      “Coasts are already experiencing the adverse consequences of hazards related to climate and sea level. They are highly vulnerable to extreme events, such as storms which impose substantial costs on coastal societies. Annually, about 120 million people are exposed to tropical cyclones, killing 250,000 people from1980 to 2000. Through the 20th Century, global rise of sea level contributed to increased coastal inundation, erosion and ecosystem losses, but with considerable local and regional variation due to other factors. Late 20th Century effects of rising temperature include loss of sea ice, thawing of permafrost and associated coastal retreat, and more frequent coral bleaching and mortality.”

v      “Coasts will be exposed to increasing risks over coming decades due to rising sea level and many compounding climate-change factors. Anticipated climate-related changes by 2100 include: an accelerated rise in sea level of up to 0.6 m or more; further rise in sea surface temperatures by up to 3oC; an intensification of tropical and extra-tropical cyclones; larger extreme waves and storm surges; altered precipitation/run-off; and ocean acidification. These phenomena will vary considerably at regional and local scales, but the impacts are virtually certain to be overwhelmingly negative. Corals are especially threatened with increased bleaching and mortality due to rising sea surface temperatures. Increased flooding and the degradation of freshwater, fisheries and other resources due to climate change could impact hundreds of millions of people.”

v      “The impact of climate change on coasts is exacerbated by growing human populations and pressures. Coastal population is booming and it may reach 5 billion people by the 2080s. Populated deltas (especially Asian and African megadeltas), low-lying coastal urban areas, and atolls are key societal hotspots of coastal vulnerability, occurring where the stresses on natural systems coincide with low human adaptive capacity and high exposure. Regionally, south, south-east and east Asia, Africa and small islands are most vulnerable.”

v      “Adaptation for the coasts of developing countries will be more challenging than for coasts of developed countries. These countries lack the necessary financial and other resources/capacities to adapt, so their vulnerability is much greater than a developed nation in an identical coastal setting. Vulnerability will also vary between developing countries, while developed countries are not insulated from the adverse consequences of extreme events as illustrated by Hurricane Katrina.”

v      “Adaptation costs for vulnerable coasts are much less than the costs of inaction. Adaptation costs for climate change are much lower than damage costs without adaptation for most developed coasts, just considering property losses and human deaths.  Without adaptation, the high-end sea-level scenarios combined with other climate change (e.g., increased storm intensity) are as likely as not to render some islands and low-lying areas uninhabitable by 2100, so effective adaptation measures are urgently required.”

v      “Sea-level rise has substantial inertia and will continue beyond 2100 for many centuries with long-term impacts. Irreversible breakdown of the West Antarctica and/or Greenland ice sheets could make this long-term rise significantly larger, ultimately questioning the viability of many coastal settlements across the globe. Settlement patterns also have substantial inertia, and this issue presents a challenge for long-term coastal spatial planning. Stabilisation of climate by reducing greenhouse emissions could reduce the risks of ice sheet breakdown, and reduce but not stop sea-level rise due to thermal expansion. Hence, the most appropriate response to sea-level rise for coastal areas is a combination of adaptation to deal with the inevitable rise, and mitigation to limit the long-term rise to a manageable level.”

In addition to the coastal chapter, this release warns of major impacts on species, water and food availability.  It finds that 2 billion people will face increased water scarcity with a global average temperature rise of 3.8 degrees Fahrenheit, agriculture fed by rainfall could drop by 50% in some African countries by 2020, 20-30% of all plant and animal species at increased risk of extinction if temperatures rise between 1.5-2.5C, and glaciers and snow cover are expected to decline, reducing water availability in countries supplied by melt water.

The report states that the observed increase in the global average temperature was "very likely" due to man-made greenhouse gas emissions.  The scientific work reviewed by IPCC scientists includes more than 29,000 pieces of data on observed changes in physical and biological aspects of the natural world.

“This report makes it clear that supporting half-measures, like voluntary or intensity-based emissions reductions, is like throwing a drowning man a tiny piece of a life jacket,” said Micah Walker Parkin of the Alliance for Affordable Energy.  “Louisiana is one of the most vulnerable places to global warming, and our leaders need to be fighting for the 80% reductions in heat-trapping emissions that scientists say are needed by 2050 to prevent the worst consequences.”

The fourteen organizations supporting Friday’s rally understand that solutions do exist, and are holding the rally in the Holy Cross Neighborhood because in addition to being a low-lying area that was devastated by Hurricane Katrina, the community is recovering as sustainably as possible, featuring reweable energy (with solar panels donated by Sharp Solar),  increased energy  efficiency (through Greenlight NOLA swapping incandescent bulbs for compact floourescents), and natural storm and flooding barrier development (through a partnership with the New Orleans Sewerage and Water Board to restore an historic cypress swamp between the community and MRGO).

The rally is being sponsored by ACORN, the Alliance for Affordable Energy, the Center for Bioenvironmental Research at Tulane and Xavier Universities, the Coalition for Louisiana Progress, Global Green, the Gulf Coast Fund, the Gulf Restoration Network, the Holy Cross Neighborhood Association, Save Our Wetlands, the Sierra Club, Step it Up 2007, Sustainable Churches for South Louisiana, and the Tulane Environmental Law Society.  For more information, go to: http://stepitup2007.org/nola

(This is a press release from Gulf Restoration Network.  It should be stated that there are scientists who totally disagree with the IPCC findings)