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Climate change is already taking its toll

It is not something that will happen at some distant time in the future. It is happening now and to a greater or lesser degree people around the world are suffering its impact.

Polar ice caps are melting at an alarming and increasing rate. Melting of the Arctic perennial sea ice - the kind that stays frozen year-round – has occurred in winter for the first time. Once, perennial sea ice was stable with declines of just 1.5 per cent to 2 per cent in a  decade, In the winter of 2004-05 it declined by 14 per cent.  Summer sea ice has also declined dramatically in recent years.

Diseases not normally occurring in Europe are starting to be seen there and the experts say it is because of global warming.

Glaciers in the Himalayas are melting more rapidly posing a major threat to the Indian subcontinent, South-East Asia and parts of China. Africa's famous snows of Kilimanjaro, romanticised by Ernest Hemingway, are receding.

Climate change has already been responsible for the extinction  of more than one per cent of the planet’s amphibian species.

Atlantic hurricanes have become more intense in recent years.

China’s deserts, which cover more than a quarter of that country’s huge landmass, are advancing alarmingly, destroying arable land and putting more than 400 million people at risk.

There have been more storms, more floods, more droughts, more heatwaves and more severe weather events of just about every kind in recent years than there have been since records were first kept, and the toll of death and destruction from these events has increased exponentially.

Unless science can find a way to halt and reverse global warming, and politicians can find the resolve to take the tough decisions that will have to be made to slash harmful greenhouse emissions, the problem will get progressively worse and the impacts will become increasingly more devastating.

Future scenarios paint a grim picture

Scientists tend to be conservative by nature, especially when it comes to forecasting the future. But they are almost unanimous in predicting a grim future for mankind unless global warming can be halted.

The insurance industry, which has already experienced the financial cost of global warming, is less reticent with predictions of more extreme and frequent severe weather events and natural disasters.

According to the industry a combination of more intense storms, more frequent bushfires and higher sea levels will threaten our homes, making them more expensive to insure, maintain, and to keep cool. And as Australians settle in increasing numbers near the coast and in the hotter outer suburbs of our major cities, their vulnerability will increase.

Coastal communities face greatest risk

An increasing number of Australians–more than 80 per cent—live within 50 km of the coast, and 25% of population growth has occurred within 3km of the coastline, predominantly in northern NSW, southern Queensland and southern Perth. Thus an increasing number of Australian homes will be exposed to changes to coastal climate, including more intense and widely spread tropical cyclones, storm surges and flooding.

Beachfront housing in particular will come under threat from rising sea levels, which the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts will rise by between 18 and 59 centimetres per decade over the course of the century. The CSIRO forecasts that beaches will be eroded by between 50 and 100 times the vertical rise in sea level, i.e. between 4.5m and 8.8m by 2100.

Bushfire risk

A hotter and drier climate will intensify the bushfire risk faced by many Australian suburbs. The 2002-03-fire season illustrated the magnitude of the threat, with more than three million hectares of bushland and vegetation destroyed across the country. The months preceding the fires where characterised by severe drought, abnormally low humidity and high daytime temperatures, all of which are likely to increase as the climate warms. Seven people died in the fires, 400 were injured and 629 homes were lost.

The CSIRO forecasts that climate change could increase the number of very high and extreme fire danger days by anything up to 25 percent by 2020 and 15-70 percent by 2050 across parts of south-eastern Australia.

The global impacts

The World Bank is forecasting a “devastating” effect on developing countries as rising sea levels wreak havoc on small island states and more frequent and more severe droughts destroy crops on marginal agricultural land.

Poorer nations, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, where agriculture accounts for about 70 per cent of employment, would be the hardest hit.

Economic growth, development and investment will be reduced in some of the world’s most vulnerable nations. Costs associated with global warming would eat into development aid forcing donors to reassess spending and the infrastructure needed to reduce poverty.

As humans struggle to come to grips with the problems of climate change, up to half of all  species of plants and animals could face extinction, researchers predict.

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