Durban - Glaciers are moving at a faster pace than the global climate change negotiations held every year by the smartest ape species on the planet, a leading South African scientist has warned.
Commenting on the findings of the latest and most comprehensive report yet on global climate change, CSIR systems ecologist Dr Bob Scholes said members of the species homo sapiens (the knowledgeable ape) liked to think of themselves as the “smartest” species in the world.
Yet there was no endless debate about hotter temperatures and human-induced climate change among seemingly less intelligent forms of life.
“They are not having this debate. They are simply migrating to the poles, almost everywhere we look,” Scholes said, referring to studies showing that several life forms – including fish, birds and plants – were starting to shift their living and feeding spaces towards cooler climates.
Scholes was among several South African scientists who contributed to the UN’s Fifth Assessment report on climate change, sections of which were published on Monday in Japan by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Speaking at a media briefing in Joburg by the Academy of Science of South Africa, Scholes said many species would not be able to move fast enough as temperatures rose and “tens of thousands” of life forms were at greater risk of extinction.
The annual UN climate negotiations continued to move at a “glacially slow pace”, with time devoted to arguments on whether the world could tolerate average temperature increases of 2ºC or 4ºC by the end of this century.
Safe level
But according to Scholes, there was no “magic” threshold that could be regarded a safe level of temperature increase. “(The risks) just get worse and worse as temperature increases,” he said.
Asked whether he was optimistic that a global agreement could be reached in Paris next year to compel all nations to start reducing carbon emissions, Scholes said the ice sheets of Greenland seemed to be melting faster than the UN climate treaty negotiations were progressing.
“Don’t get your hopes too high… But if we can get the US and China to reach agreement, then I think the other countries will follow.”
US President Barack Obama might be willing to take some bold leadership decisions as his presidential term drew to a close, Scholes said.
Dr Jane Olwoch, a Pretoria scientist and the managing director of the SA National Space Agency’s earth observation division, said it did not matter which nations produced the largest volumes of greenhouse gases that were heating up the Earth. What was most important was for all nations to respond to a changing world climate system.
Asked whether South Africa’s economy was able to shed its dependence on coal and other fossil fuels, Scholes said he had no doubt that the country could generate up to 15 percent of its electricity almost immediately from renewable sources and reduce that produced with coal to a small fraction by late mid-century.
Professor Oliver Ruppel of Stellenbosch University, who also contributed to the Fifth Assessment report published on Monday, said shifting energy generation to sun, wind and biofuels would also contribute to creating new jobs in South Africa.
Durban-based Dr Debra Roberts, also a co-author of the latest climate report, said local governments remained marginalised in UN negotiations, at a time when the eThekwini municipality and other cities should be at the coalface of the climate change debate as most people in the world lived in large cities.
“There is no city on the face of the world which is immune to these impacts,” said Roberts. - The Mercury