Three time frames for climate change

In understanding and dealing with global warming, the world has distinct but limited periods in which to act. For our leaders, the next 18 months will be the key. Saleemul Huq explains.

Climate change is the greatest challenge facing humanity. The world's leaders and citizens can and must face up to this fact and deal with it, and they have three distinct time frames in which to act.

The first period, spanning the next five to 10 decades, is the longest and is the time frame of our children and grandchildren.

The second period – the time frame of this generation – is the next two decades, during which a global temperature increase of at least one degree Centigrade is already inevitable. Even if all global emissions were to miraculously stop tomorrow, enough greenhouse gases have already accumulated in the atmosphere to mean that some climate change is unavoidable.

Finally, the time frame of global leaders is the next 18 months. This is the time left until the 192 nations that are party to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change meet in Copenhagen to agree a successor to the Kyoto Protocol.

Between now and the meeting in December 2009, the presidents, prime ministers and government ministers must agree on the elements of a fair and equitable global pact that will address climate change over the two time frames mentioned above. This means both mitigating climate change by rapidly reducing greenhouse-gas emissions and adapting to the impacts ahead.

To succeed, our leaders must lose their current mindset of striving for the best deal for their own country and its citizens. They are not just representing their own countries, but all of humanity. They are negotiating the state of the world their generation will leave behind for their children and grandchildren.

Saleemul Huq is head of the climate change group at the International Institute for Environment and Development. He is a coordinating lead author of the latest reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

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New Dam in China Possible Cause of Devastating Earthquake

Li Youcai, a retired senior engineer issued warnings about the potential dangers of creating a large water reservoir at the site of the Zipingpu dam on the Min River.  Fan Xiaori, the head engineer at the Sichuan Bureau of Geological Exploration surveying team, listed seven factors that indicate a reservoir might trigger an earthquake.  According to Fan, the Zipingpu dam meets six of these seven conditions.

Officials deny the reservoir caused the earthquake that killed tens of thousands on May 12.

The dam was built to withstand an intensity VII (very strong) earthquake on the Mercalli scale.  The Wenchuan quake measured XI (very disastrous), and the epicentre was less than 20 kilometres away.  It is a miracle that the 156-metre dam withstood the earthquake and did not release the waters behind the dam.  The reservoir was only 1/3 of capacity when the earthquake hit.

Workers and engineers are trying to assess and fix the damage to the dam and the reservoir, but discussions need to be held about what to do going forward.  Chinese politicians need to listen to their engineers.  If the decision is made to repair the dam, the reservoir should probably not be filled to capacity.  The better course of action would probably be to dismantle the dam.  This will not be the last earthquake in this region, and the next one may be stronger, especially if, as these scientists argue, the reservoir itself causes the earthquakes.

Go here to read the original story:  http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/2210

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