Biologists: Greening Arctic not Likely to Offset Permafrost Carbon Release

As the frozen soil in the Arctic thaws, bacteria will break down organic matter, releasing long-stored carbon into the warming atmosphere.
At the same time, plants will proliferate, nurtured by balmier temperatures, more nutrients from decomposing soil and the increasing abundance of the greenhouse gas they depend on for growth.
These connected but contrasting changes have raised a question for scientists who study the causes and consequences of global climate change: Will the shrubs and incipient forests spreading across the Arctic compensate for the permafrost's rising release of carbon, blunting its impact on a warming planet? Or, with twice as much carbon locked up in the permafrost as now present in the atmosphere, will the lush growth become overwhelmed — like a kitchen sponge put down to stem a water main break?
Researchers led by a University of Florida ecologist may have an answer. In a paper set to appear May 28 in the journal Nature, the team reports experimental results suggesting tundra plant growth may keep up with rising carbon dioxide initially.
But if thawing continues in a warmer world, the permafrost will spew carbon for decades, and the plants will become overwhelmed — unable to sop up the excess carbon despite even the most vigorous growth.
“At first, with the plants offsetting the carbon dioxide, it will appear that everything is fine, but actually this conceals the initial destabilization of permafrost carbon," said Ted Schuur, a UF associate professor of ecology and lead author of the paper. "But it doesn't last, because there is so much carbon in the permafrost that eventually the plants can't keep up."
Schuur noted most of the 13 million square kilometers, or roughly 5 million square miles, of permafrost in Alaska, Canada, Siberia and parts of Europe remain frozen. However, thawing already occurring around its southern edges is expected to expand this century.
Should that occur, this study suggests the permafrost could lose in the range of 1 gigaton of carbon, or 1 billion tons, per year - about the same order of magnitude as being added by current deforestation of the tropics, another large biospheric source, Schuur said.
While burning fossil fuels contributes considerably more carbon, about 8.5 gigatons annually, that process can at least in theory be controlled - whereas once the permafrost thaw begins, it sets up a self-reinforcing loop far from human activity and potentially difficult to stop.
That highlights the urgent need to address human-caused emissions now, Schuur said.
"It is not an option to be putting insulation on top of the tundra," he said. "If we address our own emissions, either by reducing deforestation or controlling emissions from fossil fuels, that's the key to minimizing the changes in the permafrost carbon pool."
Researchers from UF used hand-built, automated chambers to trap and measure carbon dioxide losses in Alaska year-round from 2004 through 2006. Thawing at the research sites near Denali National Park, in central Alaska, varies considerably, with some plots much more extensively thawed than others.
The researchers determined how long each spot had been thawing using long-term data from permafrost-monitoring instruments combined with historical aerial photographs. With a total of 18 of the automated chambers, they measured the release and uptake of carbon between the tundra and the atmosphere. This resulted in a measurement of net ecosystem carbon exchange - the total carbon each spot lost, or gained, due to thawing permafrost.
The results were clear.
Tundra sites that had thawed for the past 15 years gained net carbon, as increasingly verdant plant growth was greater than the permafrost's carbon losses. However, radiocarbon dating of carbon dioxide showed that old carbon from the permafrost was already being released in higher amounts due to thaw - signifying that all was not well with the permafrost carbon even in that time period. The site that began thawing decades before gained net carbon emission to the atmosphere, revealing that more thaw caused significantly more old carbon loss — despite greening of the vegetation, including more shrubs.
Said Jason Vogel, a UF postdoctoral associate and author of the paper: "The plants are still growing faster in the extensively thawed area, but that's not enough to keep up with the greater microbial activity releasing old carbon from deeper in the soil."
As a result, even as the Arctic greens, its escalating old carbon loss "could make permafrost a large biospheric carbon source in a warmer world," according to the paper.

Source:http://www.clas.ufl.edu/events/news/articles/20090527-permafrost.html

Plant Fossils give First Real Picture of Earliest Neotropical Rainforests

A team of researchers including a University of Florida paleontologist has used a rich cache of plant fossils discovered in Colombia to provide the first reliable evidence of how Neotropical rainforests looked 58 million years ago.
Researchers from the Smithsonian Institution and UF, among others, found that many of the dominant plant families existing in today’s Neotropical rainforests — including legumes, palms, avocado and banana — have maintained their ecological dominance despite major changes in South America’s climate and geological structure.
The study, which appears this week in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, examined more than 2,000 megafossil specimens, some nearly 10 feet long, from the Cerrejón Formation in northern Colombia. The fossils are from the Paleocene epoch, which occurred in the 5- to 7-million-year period following the massive extinction event responsible for the demise of the dinosaurs.
“Neotropical rainforests have an almost nonexistent fossil record,” said study co-author Fabiany Herrera, a graduate student at the Florida Museum of Natural History on the UF campus. “These specimens allow us to actually test hypotheses about their origins for the first time ever.”
Herrera said the new specimens, discovered in 2003, also provide information for future studies that promise to provide an even stronger understanding of the plants that formed the earliest Neotropical communities.
Many previous assumptions and hypotheses on the earliest rainforests are based on studies of pollen fossils, which did not provide information about climate, forest structure, leaf morphology or insect herbivory.
The new study provides evidence Neotropical rainforests were warmer and wetter in the late Paleocene than today but were composed of the same plant families that now thrive in rainforests. “We have the fossils to prove this,” Herrera said. “It is also intriguing that while the Cerrejón rainforest shows many of the characteristics of modern equivalents, plant diversity is lower.”
The site, one of the world’s largest open-pit coal mines, also yielded the fossil for the giant snake known as Titanoboa, described by UF scientists earlier this year.
“These new plant fossils show us that the forest during the time of Titanoboa, 58 million years ago, was similar in many ways to that of today,” said Florida Museum vertebrate paleontologist and biology professor Jonathan Bloch, who described Titanoboa but was not part of the rainforest study. “Like Titanoboa, which is clearly related to living boas and anacondas, the ancient forest of northern Colombia had similar families of plants as we see today in that ecosystem. The foundations of the Neotropical rainforests were there 58 million years ago.”
Megafossils found at the Cerrejón site made it possible to use leaf structure to identify specimens down to the genus level. This resolution allowed the identification of plant genera that still exist in Neotropical rainforests. With pollen fossils, specimens can be categorized only to the family level.
Researchers were surprised by the relative lack of diversity found in the Paleocene rainforest, Herrera said. Statistical analyses showed that the plant communities found in the Cerrejón Formation were 60 percent to 80 percent less diverse than those of modern Neotropical rainforests. Evidence of herbivory also showed a low diversity level among insects.
The study’s authors say the relative lack of diversity indicates either the beginning of rainforest species diversification or the recovery of existing species from the Cretaceous extinction event.
The researchers estimate the Paleocene rainforest received about 126 inches of rainfall annually and had an average annual temperature greater than 86 degrees. The Titanoboa study, which used different methods, estimated an average temperature between 89 and 91 degrees. Today the region’s temperatures average about 81 degrees.
Herrera is now comparing fossils from the Cerrejón site to specimens from other Paleocene sites in Colombia to see how far the early rainforest extended geographically. He is also examining fossils from a Cretaceous site to determine differences in composition before and after the extinction event.

Source:http://www.clas.ufl.edu/events/news/articles/20091021-neotropical.html

South Asia Taps Tourism Potential for Inclusive and Sustainable Growth

Efforts by Nepal, India and Bangladesh to take advantage of the tourism potential of their rich natural and cultural attractions, including many of the world’s major Buddhist sites, are getting support from the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

ADB Board of Directors today approved a total of $57.5 million in grants and loans for the South Asia Tourism Infrastructure Development Project, which will develop and improve infrastructure and services for key tourism sites in the three countries. It will also help increase the capacity of sector agencies to sustainably manage and protect sites, and will target increased involvement by local communities in tourism.
South Asia is one of the poorer regions of the world but has many renowned natural and cultural attractions, including the world’s highest mountain and the Sacred Garden in Lumbini, Nepal, where Buddha was born, the Rumtek Buddhist Monastery in India’s Sikkim state, and ancient monasteries and temples in western Bangladesh. Countries in the sub-region, including India, Nepal and Bangladesh have formed a working group for collective action to tap the synergies of their complementary tourism sites in order to expand tourism. However, development has been hindered by limited connectivity to sites, inadequate infrastructure, and a lack of capacity by sector agencies to develop and manage key destinations.
The project will target transport and other infrastructure upgrades and will improve water supply, sanitation and solid waste management services to enhance the environment at key sites. Support will be given to increase the capacity of sector agencies to sustainably manage and protect attractions, while steps will be taken to increase involvement by local communities in the tourism sector.
“Tourism plays an important role in the regional economy and this project will benefit around 2.4 million people through increased income and employment, health and environmental improvements, and reduced travel time,” said Gülfer Cezayirli, Principal Urban Development Specialist in ADB’s South Asia Department.
"The project features a subregional approach to tourism development that will bring wider benefits than a single country approach, and will help spread jobs and income to areas currently bypassed by existing tourism markets," added Ms. Cezayirli. "It includes a program to ensure that poor and remote communities have the knowledge and skills to take advantage of new tourism opportunities."
Along with ADB’s loans and grants, the governments of the three countries, and the OPEC Fund for International Development, will provide the balance of the project cost of $89.5 million.
India will receive a loan of $20 million equivalent from ADB’s ordinary capital resources. Nepal will receive a grant of $12.75 million, and a loan of $12.75 million equivalent, both from ADB’s concessional Asian Development Fund (ADF). Bangladesh will receive a $12 million equivalent ADF loan.
The project executing agencies are Nepal’s Ministry of Tourism and Civil Aviation, India’s Sikkim State Department of Tourism, and Bangladesh’s Department of Archaeology, Ministry of Cultural Affairs.The project is due for completion by September 2014.

Source:http://finchannel.com/news_flash/Travel_Biz_News/51948_South_Asia_Taps_Tourism_Potential_for_Inclusive_and_Sustainable_Growth/

Indian engineer 'builds' new glaciers to stop global warming

Chewang Norphel, 76, has "built" 12 new glaciers already and is racing to create five more before he dies.
By then he hopes he will have trained enough new "icemen" to continue is work and save the world's "third icecap" from being transformed into rivers.
His race against time is shared by Manmohan Singh, India's prime minister who called on the region's Himalayan nations, including China, Pakistan, Nepal and Bhutan, to form a united front to tackle glacial melting.
The great Himalayan glaciers, including Kashmir's Siachen glacier, feed the region's most important rivers, which irrigate farm land in Tibet, Nepal, Bangladesh and throughout the Indian sub-continent. The apparent acceleration in glacial melting has been blamed for the increase in floods which have destroyed homes and crops.
Chewang Norphel, the "Iceman of Ladakh", however believes he has an answer.
By diverting meltwater through a network of pipes into artificial lakes in the shaded side of mountain valleys, he says he has created new glaciers.
A dam or embankment is built to keep in the water, which freezes at night and remains frozen in the absence of direct sunlight. The water remains frozen until March, when the start of summer melts the new glacier and releases the water into the rivers below.
So far, Mr Norphel's glaciers have been able to each store up to one million cubic feet of ice, which in turn can irrigate 200 hectares of farm land. For farmers, that can make the difference between crop failure and a bumper crop of more than 1,000 tons of wheat.
The "iceman" says he has seen the effects of global warming on farmland as snows have become thinner on the ground and ice rivers have melted away never to return.
His own work has now been recognised by the Indian government, which has given him £16,000 to build five new glaciers. But time is his enemy, he told The Hindustan Times. "I'm planning to train villagers with instruction CDs that I have made, so that I can pass on the knowledge before I die," he said.

Source:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/globalwarming/6449982/Indian-engineer-builds-new-glaciers-to-stop-global-warming.html

Climate change could displace 600 million people, report warns

Climate change could force up 150 million climate refugees to flee their countries in the next 40 years, a report from the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) warns.

The EJF claim that between 500 to 600 million people, equivalent to ten per cent of the world’s population, are at extreme risk of displacement by climate change.

A day after coming to power last year, President Mohamed Nasheed declared his intentions of setting up a sovereign fund to relocate the Maldives 350,000 people if sea level rises swamped the island nation.

“We are just 1.5m over sea level and anything over that, any rise in sea level - anything even near that - would basically wipe off the Maldives, so we will be affected very quickly - and very soon,” said Nasheed to the authors of the EJA report.

As one of the lowest-lying countries in the world, the Maldives is vulnerable to sea level rises. In 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said sea level rises of up to 59cm within a century would submerge many of the archipelago’s 1,192 islands.

Around 80 per cent of the Maldives total land area is less than 1m above sea level and the highest point is 2.4m above sea level. Further, the EJA report noted that 40 per cent of the population, 70 per cent of fisheries infrastructure, 80 per cent of powerhouses and 99 per cent of all tourist accommodation is within 100m of the coastline.

The report stated that nearly one-third of countries have more than 10 per cent of their land within 5m of sea level while 11 countries are below 5m and five of these would be threatened by only a 1m sea level rise.

Sea level rises due to melt-water from glaciers and ice sheets as well as thermal expansion of water in seas and oceans will result in beach erosion, coral bleaching, coastal flooding, damaged coastal infrastructure and salinisation of freshwater sources, the EJA report adds.

Small Island Developing States, such as the Maldives, have the largest share of land in low-lying coastal zones and are home to six million people. These countries, the report notes, are disproportionately burdened with the impacts of climate change, despite being among the smallest emitters.

Further, climate change affects those countries that are least able to adapt as well as people who are both economically and socially disadvantaged. Paradoxically, the report said, many of the countries worst hit have the lowest greenhouse gas emissions per capita.

The report advised the creation of a legal term for people who migrate as a result of environmental degradation and climate change so that they are offered protection.

It added that in 2006, delegates from the Maldives government proposed an amendment to the 1951 UN Geneva Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees to extend the definition to include environmental refugees.

The EJF argues the need for a convention for environmental refugees and in the report, Professor Frank Biermann and Ingrid Boas of Vrije University in Holland, proposed five points to be included in the convention:

* Planned and voluntary resettlement and reintegration as opposed to ad hoc emergency relief responses

* Climate refugees to be treated the same as permanent immigrants

* Any convention must be tailored to an entire group of people, including entire nations

* Support for national governments to protect their people

* Protection of climate refugees must be seen as a global problem and global responsibilityThe foundation further contends a financial mechanism must be set up to ensure funding is available for climate change adaptation.The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change estimates that US$49 billion to US$171 billion will be needed annually by 2030 for adaptation to climate change.

Putting this figure into context, the report noted that in 2008, the nine biggest US banks paid US$32.6 billion in bonuses. The report comes less than a month before world leaders will congregate in Copenhagen to hammer out a successor to the Kyoto Protocol.

Discussions have so far stalled with the developing world arguing rich, industrialised nations must take the lion’s share of the responsibility for climate change. Meanwhile, the latter are loath to commit to drastic cuts in emissions.

Last month, Nasheed led his cabinet in the world’s first underwater dive to highlight the country’s vulnerability to rising sea levels and call for leaders to commit to cuts that will reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide to 350ppm.

Source:http://www.minivannews.com/news_detail.php?id=7645

Fight for climate and food security may pass through agriculture

Those for food security and climate change containment are two battles that can be fought together through sustainable agriculture, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization. A recent FAO report, indeed, stressed that agriculture not only suffers the impacts of climate change, it is also responsible for 14 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. But agriculture has the potential to be an important part of the solution, through mitigation - reducing and/or removing - a significant amount of global emissions, FAO says. Some 70 percent of this mitigation potential could be realized in developing countries.

"Many effective strategies for climate change mitigation from agriculture also benefit food security, development and adaptation to climate change," said FAO Assistant Director-General Alexander Müller. "The challenge is to capture these potential synergies, while managing trade-offs that may have negative impacts on food security."The report, Food Security and Agricultural Mitigation in Developing Countries: Options for Capturing Synergies was launched during the Barcelona Climate Change Talks from November 2 to 6.

The most important technical options for climate change mitigation from agriculture are improvements in cropland and grazing land management and the restoration of organic soils and degraded lands.

Other options involve difficult trade-offs, with benefits for mitigation but potentially negative consequences for food security and development. In some cases, there are synergies in the long-run, but trade-offs in the short-run.

Biofuel production provides a clean alternative to fossil fuel but can compete for land and water resources needed for food production. Restoration of organic soils enables greater carbon sequestration, but may reduce the land available for food production. Rangeland restoration may improve carbon sequestration but involves short-term reductions in herder incomes by limiting the number of livestock.

Some trade-offs can be managed through measures to increase efficiency or through payment of incentives or compensation.Many of the technical mitigation options are readily available and could be deployed immediately. But while these actions often generate a net positive benefit over time, they involve significant up-front costs.

Other barriers, such as uncertain property rights, lack of information and technical assistance or access to appropriate seeds and fertilizer, also need to be overcome. "Linking to ongoing agricultural development efforts that address these same issues is one cost effective way of doing this," said Kostas Stamoulis, Director of the FAO Agricultural Development Economics Division.A range of financing options—public, public-private and carbon markets—are currently under negotiation for climate change mitigation actions in developing countries. These could be future sources of finance for agricultural mitigation actions, the report says, as could a dedicated international fund to support agricultural mitigation in developing countries and coordination with financing from official development assistance for agricultural development.

Source:http://en.greenplanet.net/lifestyle/eco-sustainability/1104-fight-for-climate-and-food-security-may-pass-through-agriculture.html

DFID announces £50m grant to Nepal on climate change

UK government´s Department for International Department (DFID) has announced £50 million (US$ 80 million) grant assistance to Nepal for tackling climate change. The grant was provided to Nepal in view of its vulnerability to climate change impacts. Prime Minister Gordon Brown offered his support to the programme, launched less than a month before December’s crucial Copenhagen negotiations.
The Prime Minister said: "Countries right across the world need to take urgent and radical action to tackle climate change. The poorest and most vulnerable countries need our help to do so. That is why we are announcing today a £40m package of support to work with Nepal to tackle deforestation. And with less than a month to go to Copenhagen, it is time for the world to step up and make the bold decisions we need to secure a global, comprehensive and binding climate change deal.”
“Nepal is in the front line of the battle against climate change with the Himalayan glaciers melting faster than anywhere else in the world,” said UK International Development Minister Gareth Thomas, according to a statement issued here by the Department for International Development (DFID). “Deforestation is Nepal’s biggest source of greenhouse gases and we need to reverse that trend.”

“We would like to ensure participation of maximum local people in our reforestation program,” Simon Lucas, Climate Change Officer at DFID Nepal, said. DFID claims to have contributed towards reforestation in Nepal by at least 10 per cent through its various programs in the past.
“A fair and equitable deal in the upcoming Copenhagen climate change meet is vital to help ensure that the Least Developed Countries, including Nepal are given necessary funds and support to fight the devastating impacts of climate change,” read the statement.
Out of the total grant, £40 million ($ 66 million) will go towards protecting Nepal’s forests by supporting the National Forestry Programme (NFP) with other donors. The NFP aims to help increase incomes of around 1.2 million people by 50 percent. The ten-year National Forestry Programme will give Nepalese communities ownership of the thousands of hectares of forest currently under government control, helping some of the world’s poorest people to earn an income from their natural resources and put a stop to the rampant deforestation currently blighting the country. The UK will offer another £10 million to help increase Nepal’s resilience to climate change impacts. For this, measures like improving emergency warning systems, protecting the vulnerable from floods and landslides and supporting community water schemes to increase their ability to cope with drought will be taken. The DFID will be spending up to £50 million ($80 million) over the next 10 years to help tackle climate change and improve lives of the poor in Nepal.
Nepal currently has the highest per-capita carbon emissions in South Asia, at 6.6 tonnes per person per year, and the vast majority of this is caused by deforestation. The Government of Nepal does not currently have the capacity to monitor all of the nation’s forests, which cover 40% of the country, and has already handed over a fifth of Nepal’s forests to local communities to help counter this. By allowing communities to earn a living from the forests, the programme aims to increase the incomes of 1.2 million people by 50 per cent. A projected reduction in carbon emissions could also raise around £10 million on the international carbon markets.
Earlier this year, the UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown had called for an international financial initiative worth $100 billion to support developing countries to combat climate change. In response to his call, the European Union (EU) agreed to increase the figure to $135 billion. The support from DFID, which has already announced 172 million pounds to Nepal over the next three years, comes as a part of the international initiative.

Source: The Kathmandu Post, MyRepublica, DFID Press Release

Jomsom under the threat of climate change

People in the remote district of Mustang have been experiencing the worst nightmares in terms of the effects of climate change in their livelihoods and economy.

This year, the Jomsom valley saw no snowfall in the town area and no rainfall at all. The maximum temperature rose to 27 degree Celsius in comparison to 24 degrees last year. Similarly, the minimum temperature was recorded at 13 degrees, whereas in previous years, the temperature usually dipped to less than minus four degrees. The temperature fluctuation has also had an adverse effect on the snow fall pattern.

Alarmingly, the snow-line has gradually been moving up to an altitude of 5,000 meters, thereby leaving mountain rocks bare. Since snow is melting fast, tree lines are moving up as well.

According to the locals, the snow has started melting “very quickly” in Upper-Mustang. All the VDCs are now facing acute shortage of water due to quick evaporation as sources of water have drastically dried up in just a years´ time.

“This year we saw no snow here, whereas it used to snow four times a year earlier,” BP Sharma, a local shopkeeper told myrepublica.com, adding, “We have had no rainfall this year. There used to be plenty of rainfall until two years back.”

Worst affected is horticulture, which is on the verge of extinction. “In Kunjo and Kobang, there is no apple farming at all now,” said Paras Bahadur Singh, the conservation officer of Annapurna Conservation Area Project (ACAP). He informed that in Kunjo the locals are now considering orange farming as an option and in Kobang people are opting for walnut farming.

Since there is hardly any rainfall, fertile lands have turned barren. This has also had an adverse effect on the livestock. People seem to have noticed the drastic change in bio-diversity and wildlife movement though. As per the locals, one can easily find jackals at an altitude of 3800 m, which was impossible until just a few years ago. Similarly, between the months of Baisakh to Ashwin, more house flies and mosquitoes are noticed.

Mustang has a population of 14,000, and is now considered one of the most vulnerable places under the threat of glacier lake outburst. Experts have said that Thulagi glacier lake in northern Manang, which now has a high glacier deposit, is the biggest danger facing the region.

“If Thulagi bursts, the Bhotekoshi experience will repeat,” Ngamindra Dahal, a climate change expert told myrepublica.com. He added that the burst will lead to rise in the water-level of Marsyangdi, which will sweep off major hydro projects in Nepal. The Gandak barrage will be hit the hardest.

Source:http://www.myrepublica.com/portal/index.php?action=news_details&news_id=11831

Climate change impact on extended Hindu Kush-Himalayan region

Now all conscious people know at least some common consequences of global warming, the first and foremost being melting of glacier and sea level rise as its result. Mountains occupy 24% of the global surface area and are home to 12% of the world's population (ICIMOD, 2008). Mountain regions of this planet are not only vulnerable to climate change but also areas to visualize the impact of climate change since measuring the melting snow caps helps us understand the glacial retreat rate linked with climate change. The superb example of this is the Hindu Kush-Himalayan (HKH) region.
HKH range spans over 4.3 million km2 and the region includes areas of eight countries: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, China, India, Bangladesh and Myanmar. Few places on Earth can match the breathtaking splendour of the Himalayas. It contains varied geographical terrains and many unparalleled characteristics. Its towering peaks and secluded valleys have inspired naturalists, adventure seekers and spiritualists for centuries. Its diverse landscapes harbour rare creatures like red pandas, snow leopards and one-horned rhinos.
Although this region has been romanticized as a mythical paradise, it is fragile now facing many challenges. Climate change is melting its mountain glaciers. It is often referred to as the 'Third Pole' and the 'Water Tower of Asia,' as it stores a large volume of water in the form of ice and snow, and regulates the flow of the 10 major river systems in the region. But this storehouse is in danger now.
HKH region is considered to be the mountainous area of Asia expanding from south to the central Asia but extended HKH incorporates the adjacent river basins also.
Both direct instrumental records and environmental proxy records indicate that historical and recent changes in climate in many mountain regions of the world are often greater than those observed in the adjacent lowlands. Likewise, the rates of warming in the HKH region are significantly higher than the global average. The first and foremost effect of global warming is the melting of glacier -- the snow line will change by glacial retreat. The change in snow line of HKH region due to global warming will also affect the environment and livelihood of people in its river basins.
Himalayan glaciers accumulate most of their snow in summer from “solid” monsoonal precipitation. As the atmospheric temperature continues to rise, the snowline (zero temperature line) continues to shift toward higher altitudes leading to more rain (Hasnain 2002, Kadota et al. 1993). Actual and potential changes in climatic parameters can have strong impacts on the cryospheric: a change in the snowline, change in duration of snow cover, an increase in cryogenic hazards such as ice and snow avalanches, glacier recession, formation and break-out of moraine-dammed lakes, etc.
Trans-boundary effect

More immediately, as the glaciers retreat, glacial lakes form behind some of the now exposed terminal moraines at elevations ranging from 3000 masl in the west to 5000 masl in the east of the region. Rapid accumulation of water in a glacial lake can lead to a sudden breaching of the unstable moraine dam. This results in the discharge of huge amounts of water and debris, a form of flash flood known as glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF), which can have catastrophic effects downstream.
These high frozen reservoirs release their water at the top of the watersheds of the ten major rivers in the region. These rivers wind their way through thousands of kilometers of grazing, agricultural, and forest lands and are used as renewable sources of irrigation, drinking water, energy, and industry, serving some 1.3 billion people who live in the great river basins. On their journey, they recharge aquifers and many underground water sources. However, this glaciers are retreating in the face of accelerating global warming and are particularly vulnerable to climate change to the point that the long term loss of natural fresh water storage is likely to have severe effects on communities downstream.
The real threats

The eastern Himalayas has the largest concentrations of glaciers outside the polar regions -- which hold vast stores of fresh water. The region's agriculture and power generation are fully dependent on the freshwater supply fed by the discharges of the Himalayan glaciers. Continued climate change is predicted to lead to major changes in fresh water flows with dramatic impacts on biodiversity, people and their livelihoods.
The glaciers of the greater Himalayan region are nature's renewable storehouse of fresh water from which hundreds of millions of people downstream have benefited for centuries at the time in the year when it is most needed - the hot, dry season before the monsoon. One of the most visible impacts of climate change in the Himalayan region is the retreat of the glaciers, many at higher rates than in other mountain ranges.
Continued deglaciation could have a profound impact on the water in the ten large river basins originating in the HKH region. River discharges are likely to increase for some time due to accelerated melting, but the flow is then likely to be lower within next 30-50 years as the storage capacity of the glaciers will go down. The effects are likely to be felt most severely in the arid areas of the region specially parts of India which are already very dry.
Glacial lake outburst

Glacial lakes have formed in many places in the area at the foot of retreating valley glaciers. An inventory compiled by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) identified 8790 glacial lakes within selected parts of the HKH. Some 204 of the glacial lakes were considered to be potentially dangerous, that is liable to burst out leading to a glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF). There have been at least 35 GLOF events in Bhutan, China and Nepal during the 20th century (ICIMOD, 2009). It is suspected that the number and intensity of GLOF will increase due to melting of Himalayan ice.
Increased hazards

The HKH is one of the most complex, dynamic, and intensive risk hotspots with earthquakes, floods, flash floods, landslides, droughts, and wild fires affecting it off and on. This is due to the physical and socio-economic characteristics of the region combined with the changing risk factors such as climate change, population growth, and economic demand. Floods and droughts are likely to increase as a result of a number of factors. An increase in seasonal change is predicted with more precipitation during the wet season leading to increased flood risk, and potentially drier dry season with increased risk for drought. Changes in the monsoon regime might lead to an overall increase in precipitation in some areas, and a decrease in others.
Hampered ecosystem

Climate change is affecting ecosystem services by affecting forest type and area, its primary productivity, species populations and migration, occurrence of pests and diseases, and its regeneration. The increase in greenhouse gases is also affecting species composition and changing the ecosystem structure, which in turn affects ecosystem function. The interaction between elevated CO2 and climate plays an important role in the overall response of net primary productivity. Climate change will have a profound effect on the future distribution, productivity, and ecological health of forests.
There could be a significant reduction in cryospheric ecosystems and their services. A major expansion of the tropical zones would cover most of the middle mountains and inner valleys, whereby the quality and quantity of ecosystem services are likely to change dramatically for the worse.
Affected well-being

Climate change can affect people's wellbeing in a variety of ways. It is likely to exacerbate the existing food insecurity and malnutrition. Vector-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue fever are likely to move to higher altitudes. Water-borne diseases are also likely to increase with the increasing water stress accompanied by the lack of safe drinking water and basic sanitation in the region. Deaths and morbidity associated with extreme and erratic weather are also likely to increase. Climate change will have differentiated impacts which could be more severe for women, and the poor and the marginalized.
Hindu Kush-Himalaya region is highly vulnerable to the inevitable climate change. The mountain is melting in the monsoon at a higher rate and giving rise of numerous adverse effect like glacial lake outburst floods, impacting on water availability, disrupting ecosystem services, increasing the intensity of floods and drought and after all hampering the livelihood of over 1.3 billion people. Whatever we do to mitigate the climate change, global warming will be advancing in the coming years. It will take about 100-200 years to eliminate the effect of already emitted anthropogenic green house gas if whole mankind stops emitting GHGs. So, measures must be taken now to adapt to the changed climatic condition. ICIMOD can play a vital role in the way of adaptation by research and disseminating the findings to the governments in the HKH region.

Source:http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=112963

Melting glaciers threaten water supply for millions

Snow and ice in the Andes Mountains, high above the tropical regions of Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia, supply the drinking water for 30 million people. That ice has been dwindling in recent years due to rising temperatures, threatening the region’s water supply, agriculture and power generation. Scientists are stepping in to help, using monitoring data to improve understanding of the region’s water cycle and better plan for future needs.
The high Andes Cordillera is home to 70 percent of the world’s so-called tropical glaciers.

During the winter, the glaciers accumulate and store rain and snow that then melts off in the summer, providing a freshwater source. Quito, Ecuador, draws 50 percent of its water from the glacial basin, while this source accounts for 30 percent of the water used in La Paz, Bolivia. This water supply is now in jeopardy, with warmer temperatures changing the timing of the glacial melt and the amount of precipitation over the mountains; warmer temperatures cause the clouds that cover the Andes to condense at higher altitudes and release even more heat along the way.
Since 1970, the Andean glaciers have lost 20 percent of their volume, according to Peru’s National Meteorology and Hydrology Service. Some models project that many of the lower-altitude glaciers could disappear entirely in the next 10 to 20 years. Because these glaciers are the major regulators of the water supply for the region, a global effort is under way to help the region cope with increased local climate variability and global climate change.
WMO Members are contributing to a multi-disciplinary project, led by the World Bank and the Global Environment Facility, to address the situation in the Andes. Several WMO Members are monitoring changes in the glaciers with the use of high-resolution satellite images.
Improved observation and assessment practices enable the region to better map out the vulnerable areas and develop adaptation strategies. Adaptation measures include the development of alternative water sources, diversification of the energy supply and shifting to alternative crops and advanced irrigation systems.
The Colombian Government has adopted an Integrated National Adaptation Plan that includes pilot projects to regulate water in the high-altitude moorlands and to compensate for loss of available water in the insular areas. In all of these efforts, climate information plays a keyrole. Effective water management requires advance warning of dramatic changes in the hydrological cycle. The ultimate goal is for climate scientists to be able to provide the necessary forecasts to water managers everywhere. Courtesy: World Meteorological Organization.

Source:http://www.dailynews.lk/2009/11/09/fea29.asp

World 'still losing biodiversity'

An unacceptable number of species are still being lost forever despite world leaders pledging action to reverse the trend, a report has warned. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) says the commitment to reduce biodiversity loss by 2010 will not be met. It warns that a third of amphibians, a quarter of mammals and one-in-eight birds are threatened with extinction.
The analysis is based on the 44,838 species on the IUCN Red List. "The report makes for depressing reading," said co-editor Craig Hilton Taylor, manager of the IUCN's Red List Unit.
"It tells us that the extinction crisis is as bad, or even worse than we believed.
"But it also shows the trends these species are following and is therefore an essential part of decision-making processes."
The main policy mechanism to tackle the loss is the Convention for Biological Diversity (CBD), which came into force in 1993 with three main aims:
• To conserve biological diversity
• Use biological diversity in a sustainable fashion
• Share the benefits of biological diversity fairly and equitably
Currently, 168 nations are signatories to the convention, which set the target "to achieve by 2010 a significant reduction of the current rate of biodiversity loss at the global, regional and national level".

Jean-Christophe Vie, deputy head of the IUCN's Species Programme, warned that the scale of "wildlife crisis" was far worse than the current global economic crisis.
"It is time to recognise that nature is the largest company on Earth working for the benefit of 100% of humankind," he said. "Governments should put as much effort, if not more, into saving nature as they do saving economic and financial sectors.
"When governments take action to reduce biodiversity loss, there are some conservation successes but we are still a long way from reversing that trend."
The assessment lists 869 species as Extinct or Extinct in the Wild. Overall, the report categorises at least 16,928 species as being threatened with extinction.
"All of the plants and animals that make up Earth's amazing wildlife have a specific role and contribute to essentials like food, medicine, oxygen, water," said Mr Vie. "We need them all, in large numbers. We quite literally cannot afford to lose them."

Source:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8130942.stm

Species' extinction threat grows

More than a third of species assessed in a major international biodiversity study are threatened with extinction, scientists have warned.
Out of the 47,677 species in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, 17,291 were deemed to be at serious risk.
These included 21% of all known mammals, 30% of amphibians, 70% of plants and 35% of invertebrates.
Conservationists warned that not enough was being done to tackle the main threats, such as habitat loss.
"The scientific evidence of a serious extinction crisis is mounting," warned Jane Smart, director of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) Biodiversity Conservation Group.

"The latest analysis... shows that the 2010 target to reduce biodiversity loss will not be met," she added.
"It's time for governments to start getting serious about saving species and make sure it's high on their agendas for next year, as we are rapidly running out of time."
The Red List, regarded as the most authoritative assessment of the state of the planet's species, draws on the work of thousands of scientists around the globe.
The latest update lists amphibians as the most seriously affected group of organisms on the planet, with 1,895 of the 6,285 known species listed as threatened.
Of these, it lists 39 species as either "extinct" or "extinct in the wild". A further 484 are deemed "critically endangered", 754 "endangered" and 657 "vulnerable".

The Kihansi Spray Toad (Nectophyrnoides asperginis) is one species that has seen its status change from critically endangered to extinct in the wild.
It was only found in the Kihamsi Falls area of Tanzania, but its population had crashed in recent years from a high of an estimated 17,000 individuals.
Conservationists suggest that the rapid decline was primarily the result of of a dam being constructed upstream from the toads' habitat, which resulted in a 90% reduction in the flow of water.
"In our lifetime, we have gone from having to worry about a relatively small number of highly threatened species to the collapse of entire ecosystems," observed Professor Jonathan Baillie, director of conservation programmes at the Zoological Society of London (ZSL).
"At what point will society truly respond to this growing crisis?"
The updated data from the 2009 Red List is being made publicly available on the IUCN website on Tuesday.

Source:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8338880.stm

Nepal, Japan team up for Himalayan climate research

Climate change and environmental research in the Himalayas are set to receive a boost with the announcement of a new research partnership between Japan and Nepal.

The Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES) — a Japanese research agency focusing on sustainable development — will work with Nepal's International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) on climate change related issues, says a joint statement issued this month (1 October).

Their work will cover the Hindu Kush-Himalayas (HKH), a swath of mountain ranges stretching from Afghanistan to Myanmar, and covering Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Pakistan and Nepal.

Megumi Kido, IGES public relations officer, says: "The two institutes will work together on four major areas: natural resources management and ecosystem services [processes and resources in the natural ecosystem that benefit humankind] like water resources, forest resources and watersheds, rewarding for ecosystem services including carbon financing, adaptation to climate change, and policy and governance."

The joint research will include adaptation and mitigation strategies to combat climate change. The agreement comes at a time when experts are pointing towards a huge lack of scientific information on various issues in the HKH region including glacier melting, and water and forest resources.

A 2009 ICIMOD report on the impact of climate change on water resources and livelihoods in the Himalayas says, "Climate change is affecting the amount of snow and ice and rainfall patterns in the Himalayan region, but there is a severe lack of data needed to understand these processes".

Pradeep Mool, a remote sensing specialist in the integrated water and hazards management division at ICIMOD, told SciDev.Net that the lack of consistent data has often confused citizens. "There is no consistency in the data on the area glaciers cover in the Himalayas. I also remember in 1997, when there was fear of the Tsho Rolpa glacier bursting in Nepal, the media published reports that it may flood Kathmandu — which was unrealistic as Kathmandu doesn't fall within its catchment."The bilateral agreement marks a major expansion in collaboration between the two agencies. Previous partnerships between the two institutes have involved the informal sharing of scientific data for analysis.

Source:http://www.scidev.net/en/news/nepal-japan-team-up-for-himalayan-climate-research.html

Weather station network to serve South Asia

Countries in South Asia are to benefit from a network of weather stations that will monitor climate variations and improve preparation for the impact of global warming.

The India Meteorological Department (IMD) will first set up 50 stations across Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal, India's environment minister Jairam Ramesh announced last week (20 October) at a meeting of environment ministers and officials from countries belonging to the South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC).

A second phase will cover Afghanistan and Pakistan before a third extends the network to the Maldives and Sri Lanka.

The stations, which will focus on storm surveillance, will be part of the SAARC Meteorological Research Centre (SMRC) which covers the countries concerned.Ramesh did not specify when the weather stations would be set up, just that it will be "very soon".

He said the ministers had also agreed to hold annual South Asian workshops on climate change to discuss each country's plans for climate change mitigation, adaptation, measurement and monitoring.

At the UN conference on climate change in Copenhagen in December, SAARC countries plan to hold an event to highlight the region's concerns about the impact of global warming.

The decision to ramp up climate change activities is the second major initiative announced recently for the region.On 18 October, India announced it would set up a research centre and launch two of its own satellites to gather data on climate change.

Ramesh announced in Bangalore that the city would be home to the new National Institute on Climate and Environmental Sciences (NICES), which will help the country gather its own data on greenhouse gas emissions and climate change projections instead of relying on data from Western countries.

The institute will complement the Centre for Climate Change Research (CCCR), which was launched in August by the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology to focus on basic climate science and modelling.NICES will receive an initial government grant of 400 million rupees (around US$9 million) and will be a "data hub" on climate change that will help build India's local capacity, said Ramesh. He is increasingly emphasising the need for India to develop its own models and database (see Homegrown climate models 'set India's record straight').

The Indian space department will launch the two satellites in 2010 and 2011 to monitor greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane.

Source:http://www.scidev.net/en/news/weather-station-network-to-serve-south-asia.html

Attention on Himalayas at Summit

KATHMANDU, NOV 03 - Despite attention on the Polar Regions as hot-spots of climate change, the effects of global warming on the Himalayas have largely been ignored. The melting of the Himalayas, which hold about 0.77 percent of the total snow in the world, goes largely neglected, even though billions of people living in the region are highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.

“The effects of climate change on countries like Bangladesh and Maldives are now well known; however, there is little international awareness about the vulnerability of the Himalayas posed by the same cause,” said Deepak Bohora, Minister for Forest and Soul Conservation on Monday.

Furthering this message will be 2,000 mountaineers who have scaled Mt. Everest and will come together on Dec. 11, International Mountain Day, at the Copenhagen Climate Summit to raise awareness on impacts of climate change in the Himalayas.

The campaign, named Summiteers’ Summit and led by mountaineer Appa Sherpa, will help draw interest of world leaders on the serious impact of global warming phenomena such as faster retreat of glaciers and their bursting, along with vulnerabilities of the people living in the Himalayas.

Sherpa, who successfully climbed Everest for the record 19th time this year said, “The snow levels are decreasing significantly. I saw water at 8,000 m this year, which is very uncommon in the Everest region.”

Meanwhile, explaining another instance of climate change in the region, Appa said locals of Dingboche in Solukhumbu district are not interested in building any new infrastructure including schools, hospitals and houses, due to fears of glacial lake outbursts.

Summiteer Pemba Dorje Sherpa, record-holder for the fastest ascent of Everest, said, climbing Everest was much easier this year compared with previous years. “We can climb comfortably with normal shoes up to 7,000 m. There are more rocky parts compared with snow-covered areas on the way to the summit,” he said.

Pemba agreed with Apa about the presence of water at higher altitudes than before. “Earlier, we had to melt the ice to drink water. However, water is now easily found without having to heat the ice,” he said.

The government has said it will lead the role to draw global attention about climate change impacts in the Himalayas especially towards Mt. Everest in the 15th Conference of Parties of United Nation’s Framework of Climate Change (UNFCC) to be held at Copenhagen, Denmark, this December.

Minister Bohora also said that the government will invite Bill Clinton and Al Gore, former U.S. president and vice-president, among other world leaders to lead the summiteers in Copenhagen.This year’s Copenhagen summit of climate change is viewed as a crucial meeting of all the meetings of the UNFCC. The summit has been billed as a final opportunity for the world to seal a deal to prevent climate change’s catastrophic impacts and help poor countries like Nepal to adapt to the phenomenon.

Source:http://www.ekantipur.com/news/news-detail.php?news_id=302408

Nepal: A Top Tourist Destination

Lonely Planet, the largest travel guide-book and digital media publisher, has included Nepal in its 'Best in Travel 2010' list released Monday.

Nepal features sixth on the list of top ten countries to visit in 2010 as recommended by Lonely Planet. El Salvador, Germany, Greece, Malaysia, Morocco, New Zealand, Portugal, Suriname, and the United States are the other countries in the list.

They'll take you from the familiar to the far away, both geographically and culturally, and more than likely have you reaching for your travel bag, says Lonely Planet about the destinations mentioned.

Source:nepalnews.com

Global Warming and Climate Change as Opportunities

How must society adapt to rapid climate change to minimise severe upheaval?

The question makes two explicit assumptions, both of which are controversial and disputed: that climate change is rapid and that it will result in severe upheaval. Similarly, it is not clear whether the best reaction to global warming should be societal, or individual (or, perhaps, global).

That global warming is happening has now been established. Yet, such a forcing is likely to take centuries to induce any discernible climate change on the planetary level. Moreover: self-interested and well-paying hype aside, we know close to nothing about the hypercomplex set of interactions between various greenhouse gases, the atmosphere, the oceans, the Earth's orbit, volcanic eruptions, human activities, the unforeseen outcomes and by-products of well-meaning regulation and technologies (such as biofuels), solar dynamics, plate tectonics, and thousands of other factors, the vast majority of which are yet to be discovered.

Environmentalism is, therefore, poor science or pseudo-science: it is a pernicious and venal form of faddish hubris. In our current state of ignorance, the more ambitious variants of "solutions" such as geoengineering are far more dangerous than the threats of global warming. Two things are clear, though: (a) Climate change had happened frequently and repeatedly, long before and ever since humans strode the scene; and (b) Some regions of Earth will greatly benefit economically from global warming.

Others, inevitably, will suffer and will have to adapt. None of this sounds like a "severe upheaval", let alone life-threatening as the more rabid and sensationalist environmentalists will have us believe.

We should take an inventory of what we know and act upon it resolutely (mitigation): emissions from fossil fuel combustion should be tamed, captured, stored, sunk, and sequestered (aerosols to be further studied in conjunction with global dimming and ozone depletion); measures for population control and family planning enhanced; alternative and renewable fuels should be studied and incentives provided to energy-efficient, clean and green technologies; cement manufacture should be tweaked; cap and trade (or tax) schemes implemented on the national, corporate, and individual levels; weather-resistant, energy-conserving, and green construction technologies pioneered; the diets of livestock should be adapted to restrict biological emissions; deforestation and reforestation should be rationalized as should be land use; drought-related indigenous agricultural and water management knowledge and crop varieties should be preserved; flood defenses erected or strengthened; and weather-monitoring capacity should be extended and modernized. These measures make good sense, whatever the urgency of the problem facing us.

But, we should invest the bulk of our scarce resources in research and innovation. We should accept that climate change is inevitable and work out ways of harnessing it to our benefit. We should come up with new agricultural methods and strains; new types of tourism; new irrigation techniques; water desalination, diversion, transport, and allocation schemes; ways of sustaining biological diversity and of helping the human body adapt and cope; and global plans to cope with energy production problems, poverty, and disease triggered by global warming.

For the next few centuries, global warming is inexorable and largely irreversible (as the IPCC essentially admits). To think otherwise is completely delusional. Better to re-imagine our existence on this planet (adaptation). As temperatures rise in certain locales (and drop in others!), new economic activities and routes of commerce would be made possible or rendered feasible; new types of produce and forests will flourish; new technologies will be developed to cater to a novel and growing set of needs.

We would do well to not consider global warming as a crisis, but as a massive change. And even if we insist on regarding it as a cataclysm, as the Chinese saying goes, there are opportunities in every predicament. The initial costs of every transformation and transition in human history have been steep (recall the Industrial Revolution and, more recently, the transition from Communism to Capitalism). Climate change is not likely to be the only exception. Such a massive realignment implies severe disruption and great distress. But, invariably, tectonic shifts are followed by an extended period of creativity and growth. This time will be no different.

Source:http://globalpolitician.com/25981-climate-change-global-warming-environment

Melting Himalayan glaciers endanger all of South Asia

Reports indicate that the melting of the Himalayan glaciers is threatening the kingdom of Bhutan, the impacts of which will adversely affect the entire South Asian region.
According to a report in Nature News, glaciers in the Himalayas are retreating faster than in any other part of the world and they could disappear completely by 2035. This puts the mountainous nation of Bhutan at a special risk. In an area smaller than Switzerland, it has 983 glaciers and 2,794 glacial lakes, some of which have burst to produce deadly glacial lake floods.
A nation without even its own helicopter, Bhutan lacks the resources to combat global warming. It is carrying out the work at Thorthormi glacier with the help of money from various international donors.
As the first nation to get adaptation money from the Least Developed Countries Fund, Bhutan is something of a pioneer among developing nations in their quest to adapt to a warmer future, and the struggles at Thorthormi glacier illustrate the enormous obstacles that adaptation efforts still face. It is only within the past decade that researchers realized that Thorthormi could pose a threat. Thorthormi’s ponds were expanding and merging to form larger bodies of water. The changes have been dramatic even in the past few months. “Just before we started our work here in July this year, that part of the lake was water,” said Karma Toeb, the project’s glaciologist and team leader, pointing down to a number of icebergs. “The ice blocks have been breaking off the mother glacier upstream,” he added.
According to Thinley Namgyel, the deputy chief environment officer at the National Environment Commission in Thimphu, “A few decades down the line, the glaciers will retreat and we are not sure what impact it will have on the economy.” But, the impacts of the melting of the Himalayan glaciers will reach far beyond Bhutan’s borders. The glacier-fed rivers that flow south from the Himalayas are the arteries of south Asia.
It is estimated that the retreat of glaciers will affect the water supply of roughly 750 million people across South Asia and China, according to Rajendra Pachauri, the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Across Asia, there are countless cases like Thorthormi, where the needs are great and the resources scarce. Regarding the effects of climate change and their costs, “every single estimate that people have come up with has been exceeded by reality”, said Dr. Pachauri. “The impacts of climate change are clearly turning out to be much worse than what we had anticipated earlier,” he added.

Source:http://beta.thehindu.com/sci-tech/energy-and-environment/article37572.ece

Climate map shows human impacts

A map designed to show the predicted effects of a 4C rise in global average temperature has been unveiled by the UK government. It shows a selection of the impacts of climate change on human activity.
These include extreme temperatures, drought, effects on water availability, agricultural productivity, the risk of forest fire and sea level rise. The map is based on peer-reviewed science from the Met Office's Hadley Centre and other scientific groups.
It was launched at the Science Museum by Foreign Secretary David Miliband, Climate and Energy Secretary Ed Miliband and the UK's chief scientist Professor John Beddington. According to the Department of Energy and Climate Change, agricultural yields would be expected to decrease for all major cereal crops in all major regions of production.
In addition, half of all Himalayan glaciers will be significantly reduced by 2050, leading to 23% of the population of China being deprived of the vital dry season glacial meltwater. The impacts are those expected to result following a global average temperature rises of 4C above the pre-industrial climate average.
Mr Miliband commented: "To tackle the problem of climate change, all of us - foreign ministries, environment ministries, treasuries, departments of defence and all parts of government and societies - must work together to keep global temperatures to 2C."

Source:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8324428.stm