Climate tipping point near warn UN, World Bank

Environment News Service: The planet is quickly approaching the tipping point for abrupt climate changes, perhaps within a few years, according to the UN Environmental Programme's newly released 2009 Year Book and a separate World Bank report now being presented throughout Latin America. The UN agency warns that urgent action is needed to avoid catastrophic climate events such as major food and water shortages, shifts in weather patterns, and destabilization of "major ice sheets that could introduce unanticipated rates of sea level rise within the 21st century."

The report warns that climate changes are occurring much faster than anticipated by the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, issued in 2007. While earlier estimates forecast up to half a meter (19.5 inches) rise in sea level in the coming century, updated calculations suggest that the rise may be as high as two meters (78 inches). Melting ice sheets and glaciers in the northern and southern hemispheres will not only contribute to sea level rise, but will also leave many regions around the world without basic water resources for human consumption and industrial production.

In its new report, the World Bank focuses on four climate impacts of special concern: "the warming and eventual disabling of mountain ecosystems in the Andes; the bleaching of coral reefs leading to an anticipated total collapse of the coral biome in the Caribbean basin; the damage to vast stretches of wetlands and associated coastal systems in the Gulf of Mexico; and the risk of forest dieback in the Amazon basin."

….Last week, World Bank climate experts presented devastating news to an audience in Lima, Peru - glaciers in the Andes mountain range may disappear within the next 20 years unless immediate action is taken to mitigate climate change. In the past 35 years, Peruvian glaciers have shrunk by 22 percent, resulting in a 12 percent reduction in freshwater for the coastal area, the home of about 60 percent of the country's population.

A rainbow in Death Valley, shot by Jim Gordon from Biloxi, MS, Wikimedia Commons, under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License