Tag Archives: Climate Change

While Australia fiddles, the world meets.

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Sunday will see 150 countries meeting under the UN umbrella – let’s hope that we get more than aspirational targets. Australia government under the APEC banner has continued to be vague on emission targets. Without emission targets, then can be no framework; with no framework, you have no action. And with no action, we will not see Australia’s (or for that purpose the world’s) emissions being reduced any time soon.

Leaders gather ahead of key UN climate summit
UNITED NATIONS (AFP) — World leaders were gathering here Sunday for an unprecedented UN summit aimed at whipping up action against climate change. About 150 countries are taking part in Monday’s one-off event, some 80 of them at the level of heads of state and government, United Nations sources said.

The meeting has been called by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who has declared global warming one of the top priorities of his mandate.

The summit aims at breaking a crippling deadlock in efforts to craft a global treaty on greenhouse gases, but diplomats discounted that it would be a session where leaders would spell out detailed emissions cuts.

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Ove Hoegh-Guldberg and Peter Ridd on Triple J Radio

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I was interviewed recently on Triple J radio (an Australian nation-wide radio station) for a current affairs program called “Hack” along with Peter Ridd to discuss the “Great Barrier Reef Swindle” (as I have blogged here before).

[audio:https://climateshifts.org/climateshifts/audio/ovehgtriplej.mp3]

Please feel free to leave your comments below – download the entire Hack episode at Triple J, or the edited interview (as above) here at Climate Shifts

“THE HEAT IS ON – Global warming set to hit hard this summer”

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“Global warming set to hit hard this summer” – or so predicts the front page of the Courier Mail newspaper this morning. To soon to tell? The Bureau of Meterology has already predicted a warmer spring in the Australian tropics, with 60-70% chance of exceeding the median minimum spring temperatures and a 55-70% chance of exceeding the median maximum spring temperatures.

Article from: The Courier-Mail

Kerrie Sinclair and Michael Madigan

September 18, 2007 12:00am

FOOD prices are about to soar, the national economy hit hard and even a day at the beach could be ruined by the effects of climate change.

Three new sets of research point to the far-reaching implications global warming is set to have on everyday life in Queensland – as early as this summer.

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Dr Charlie Veron – A Reef in Time

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I recently got the chance to speak with Dr Charlie Veron regarding the launch of his new book, “A Reef In Time : The Great Barrier Reef from Beginning to End”. As I’ve blogged before, Charlie is an expert coral taxonomist with over 35 years of experience, and already the principal author of over 20 books and monographs on corals including the award winning “Corals of the World” and “Corals in space and time“. The central theme, which remains constant throughout, it that the origins, history, diversity, and ultimate fate of Great Barrier Reef – as with all coral reefs – is, and always has been, controlled by global climates. Thinking that the Great Barrier Reef was once impervious to climate change: “Owned by a prosperous country and accorded the protection it deserves, it would surely not go the way of the Amazon rain forest or the parklands of Africa, but would endure forever. That is what I thought once, but I think it no longer.” This is shaping up to be a seminal book (think Silent Spring by Rachel Carson) which will hopefully serve as a wake up call to the worlds reefs.

Update: Australian viewers can watch Charlie Veron on Catalyst this week (Thursday 8pm). I will try and upload the interview from this on Climate Shifts for overseas viewers.

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APEC Constitution round-up

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It’s been pretty hard to avoid the extensive media coverage of the APEC meeting in Sydney over the last week, particularly the outcome of the “Sydney Declaration on Climate Change and Energy” (read more here)

Some interesting asides for the regions coral reefs:

“We (the ministers) look forward to future work that will help to conserve marine and coastal resources, including the safeguarding of coral reefs” (link)

President G.W. Bush commits to supporting Indonesia’s reforestation program with $20 million USD :

The Indonesian leader thanked the US administration for giving assistance and attention to Indonesia`s efforts to protect the environment, especially those to address climate change and coral reef destruction” (link)

… and an excerpt from the declaration itself:

Improved dialogue and policy and technical co-operation is valuable in underpinning our efforts. We … welcome the Coral Triangle Initiative on Coral Reefs, Fisheries and Food Security which is aimed at enhancing the conservation of marine biological resources (link)

More on this from me in the coming days.

Meanwhile, the more cynical might enjoy the following blogged over at ZDnet:

They talked global warming down in Australia. All those leaders from the U.S., China, Japan, Russia, host-nation Australia, Indonesia and fifteen other nations agreed that they aspire to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Boy, that’s reassuring. These leaders didn’t do anything radical, like promise to do anything. Good intentions and high aspirations, that’s the ticket.

Warmer seas will stress coral

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06-Sep-2007

By Michele Gierck

While the need to protect vulnerable people around the globe is widely recognised, people are less aware of the need to protect the vulnerable areas of the earth itself, including its rivers and oceans.

Climate change is perhaps the greatest challenge confronting the international community. The study of oceans and reefs offers us insight into the consequences of not taking immediate action to combat this challenge.

On a recent trip to Heron Island, I visited the Heron Island Research Station (HIRS) and met with Dr Selina Ward, a scientist at the Centre for Marine Studies (CMS) at the University of Queensland, which operates the station.

Research from the CMS and the Australian Research Council Centre for Excellence for Coral Reef Studies (CoECRS) reveals that there are two main threats facing reefs around the globe: rising sea temperatures, which leads to coral bleaching, and increasing ocean acidification.

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Nature Reports Climate Change

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Getting accurate information on the effects of climate change and updates of the science is often tricky, particularly with the campaign for disinformation from the right wing think tanks. Nature magazine, which is in the top two scientific journals in the world, has put together a website which provides a digest of a topical issues associated with climate change. I found this very useful in catching up on some of the complex issues – particularly their new blog “Climate Feedback” which is doing a great job in dissecting climate change science and the wider implications of global warming.

“Climate tipping points loom large”

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My friend and colleague, Professor David Stout, pointed me in the direction of this special report in new scientist (16 August 2007). The article highlights the uncertainties that are involved in some of the non-linear changes in climate and points out that the more we know, the less certain we’re about the directions or the rate at which some of these potentially catastrophic changes in climate may occur.

Climate tipping points loom large – Fred Pearce

SOME climate tipping points may already have been passed, and others may be closer than we thought, it emerged this week. Runaway loss of Arctic sea ice may now be inevitable. Even more worrying, and very likely, is the collapse of the giant Greenland ice sheet. So said Tim Lenton of the University of East Anglia, UK, speaking on Monday at a meeting on complexity in nature, organised by the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge.

Lenton warned the meeting that global warming might trigger tipping points that could cause runaway warming or catastrophic sea-level rise. The risks are far greater than suggested in the current IPCC report, he says.

Yet climate modellers are in a quandary. As models get better and forecasts more alarming, their confidence in the detail of their predictions is evaporating.

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