- European winters will disappear by 2080 and extreme weather
will become more common unless global warming across the continent is slowed,
warns a major new report.
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- Europe is warming more quickly than the rest of the world
with potentially devastating consequences, including more frequent heatwaves,
flooding, rising sea levels and melting glaciers, says the European Environment
Agency (EEA) document, launched on Wednesday.
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- The changes are happening at such a pace that Europeans
must put in place strategies to adapt to an unfamiliar climate, the researchers
write, although they stress the importance of the Kyoto Protocol in cutting
greenhouse gas emissions.
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- "Europe has to continue to lead worldwide efforts
to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but this report also underlines that
strategies are needed at European, regional, national and local level to
adapt to climate change," says Jacqueline McGlade, executive director
of the EEA, based in Denmark. "This is a phenomenon that will considerably
affect our societies and environments for decades and centuries to come."
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- "What the report shows is that, if we go on as we
are, we have less than 50 years before we encounter conditions which will
be uncharted and potentially hazardous," she told the BBC.
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- Alpine glaciers
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- The report paints a dismal picture of Europe's future,
based on climatic changes since the Industrial Revolution, which have accelerated
over the last 50 years. The concentration of the main greenhouse gas, carbon
dioxide, in the lower atmosphere is at its highest for possibly 20 million
years, and stands 34 per cent higher than its pre-Industrial Revolution
level.
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- The global warming rate is now almost 0.2C per decade,
and temperatures in Europe are projected to climb by a further 2 to 6.3
degrees this century, due to the build-up of greenhouse gases.
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- Picture postcard European snowscapes are destined to
become consigned to history books before the end of the century, and 75
per cent of Alpine glaciers will have melted by 2050 ñ melting reduced
the glaciers by one-tenth in 2003 alone, the study found.
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- Sea levels are predicted to rise for centuries to come,
at a rate of up to four times faster than during the last century ñ
a particular concern in low-lying countries such as the Netherlands, where
half the population lives below sea-level.
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- Biggest emitter
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- Freak weather conditions, such as the floods of 2001
that killed about 80 people, and the heatwave of 2003 that led to more
than 20,000 deaths, are set to become more frequent and severe, the report
states.
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- So far 123 countries, including all the EU member states,
have ratified the 1997 Kyoto Protocol to reduce their emissions of six
greenhouse gases by 5 per cent by 2012.
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- But the worldís biggest emitter of greenhouse
gases - the US - has refused to sign. In order to meet the EU's target
of capping global warming to a rise of 2C in temperature by 2100, the EEA
report says greenhouse gases need to be reduced substantially.
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- However, the report says, due to the longevity of these
gases in the atmosphere and the ongoing emissions of greenhouse gases,
"the observed rise is likely to continue and increase into the 21st
century."
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- "The consequences of climate change are a very real
and dangerous threat, yet international leaders seem to pay little heed
to the warning bells," warns Mike Childs, campaigns director at Friends
of the Earth.
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- "Climate change is as big a threat to people and
the planet as international terrorism."
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- http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996302
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