Global warming is here and it's real

YOU can expect world leaders to be talking a lot of hot air about climate change today. They will be trying to bask in the glory of having collectively taken the step that may save our planet for future generations.

Make sure you take it with a pinch of salt. Yes, the Kyoto Protocol that comes into force today is an historic event. It will be the first time the majority of the world's industrialised nations have signed up to legally-binding targets for reduction of carbon dioxide emissions.

But it is far from the solution to global warming some of the world's leaders might have you believe. For a start, the United States - the worst polluter of all - has refused to sign up. Even among those nations that have signed, the targets for reduction of greenhouse gases fall way short of what many scientists would like to see.

European countries such as Britain, for example, are committed to reducing emissions by eight per cent from 1990 levels by 2008/2012. "But the reductions are a long way short of the 50 or 60 per cent that we need by 2050," says Prof John Whitelegg of the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) in York.

The York centre of SEI is one of four around the world. The parent organisation, based in Stockholm, played a key part in helping to set up the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change, which itself pushed for today's Kyoto protocol.

The debate on global warming has taken off again recently. Films such as The Day After Tomorrow will have scared the pants off many ordinary people. But just when you were beginning to believe global warming was real and we really ought to be doing something about it, along comes best-selling Jurassic Park author Michael Crichton, who argues in his latest novel Climate Of Fear that global warming is all media hype.

You can forget that, says Professor Phil Ineson, a colleague of John Whitelegg at the SEI. "It is happening. The evidence is there," he says. "Do we take the word of a single novelist, or that of thousands of scientists from around the world?"

Carbon dioxide is thought to trap heat: so the more of it there is in the atmosphere, the warmer the air. Evidence from polar ice cores shows that for the past 400,000 years, as carbon dioxide levels have gone up, global temperatures have gone up, Prof Ineson says.

For nearly half a million years, there was a cycle of rising and falling temperatures, always within a certain limit. Since the industrial revolution, carbon-dioxide levels have risen well beyond those established limits; and the global temperature is following - up by half a degree on average since the industrial revolution began, Prof Ineson says.

Which doesn't sound much, but he believes that is accelerating.

"It is predicted that we will have a 1.5 degree to two degree rise by the year 2050," he says.

If that happens, it could trigger a vicious circle. The peat moors of Scotland, the North York Moors and the Pennines contain huge reserves of carbon locked up in the soil, and there is evidence that as the atmosphere warms up, that carbon dioxide will be released.

"Experiments we have done have shown that if the annual mean temperature rises by three degrees, that will have a big effect," he says.

"If the atmosphere gets warmed up, that will start to heat the Pennines and the North York Moors, and then we will see carbon that has been held in the peat for thousands of years start to be released. How do you cool the Pennines down?"

It is not only industrialisation that is to blame. Deforestation is destroying the forests that are able to soak up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. And the intensive rearing of livestock is also causing an increase in another greenhouse gas connected with global warming - methane.

The effect on our planet if global warming isn't checked could be catastrophic.

Globally, there will be more extremes of weather - with more flooding from storms and rising sea levels, but also droughts as heat waves become hotter and more frequent.

As usual, the poorer countries will suffer most. The 2000 floods in York were bad enough, Prof Ineson says. But imagine those floods much worse, in a country where there are no proper emergency services or welfare systems, no fire brigade, no insurance. "You end up with a catastrophe," he says.

Even here, however, there will be a real effect on all of our lives. The impact of global warming on Yorkshire and the Humber is summarised in Warming Up The Region, a document produced by the UK Climate Impacts Programme.

It predicts that:

Average temperatures will be 1.0 - 2.3C higher by the 2050s and 1.6 - 3.9C higher by 2080s

Winters up to 20 per cent wetter by the 2050s with higher rainfall intensities

Sea level will increase by between 6 - 82 cm by 2080s

Summer rainfall in the region will decrease by up to 32 per cent by the 2050s

Temperature extremes will become more common

There will be only a quarter as many frosty nights, but five times as many warm summer nights

There will be more very hot days, fewer foggy days

These changes, individually and in combination, would affect people and organisations within the region in a variety of ways, the report says.

They include:

Increased flood risk

Increased risk of extreme weather events disrupting travel and damaging buildings and the natural environment

A growing season 45-100 days longer, resulting in greater agricultural productivity

Reduced soil moisture, threatening some habitats and requiring changing agricultural practices

A decrease in cold-related deaths and an increase in heat-stress

New diseases and a possible increase in food poisoning.

Those are real changes and should concern us all. York councillor Christian Vassie believes it is time we woke up to the reality of global warming.

Those opposed to measures designed to help reduce carbon emissions - such as the proposed wind turbines at Escrick, for example - always have great reasons for doing nothing, Coun Vassie says.

"They say 'Not here, not now, not us'," he says. "To which I say, 'If not here, then where? If not now, then when? If not us, then who?"

If nothing else, today's signing of the Kyoto protocol may bring those questions into greater focus.

:: What can we do?

Britain is doing quite well at reducing emissions, concedes John Whitelegg of the SEI. But that is mainly because we are closing down large-scale industry.

Close the coal mines, coal-fired power stations and heavy industry and of course we will produce fewer emissions, he says. But all we are doing is exporting the problem elsewhere - to countries such as China, South Korea and Thailand, which will manufacture the goods we no longer make. So on a global level, it doesn't make much difference.

What is worrying, Prof Whitelegg says, is that Britain seems determined to massively increase the use of air travel. There are proposals, he claims, to increase the number of UK passengers flying from 180m a year in 2003 to something like 500m a year in 2030. "To put that in context, that would need a new Heathrow every five years."

Thanks to new technology, car and aeroplane engines are cleaner and more efficient, but that is more than offset by the rise in the number of people travelling more often and for greater distances.

City of York Council is doing its bit. It recently signed up to the Nottingham Declaration, which commits it to reducing greenhouse emissions. There are no targets as yet. But the council has already launched a review of its energy use, which will be used to draw up a strategy for the future. This will include reducing energy wastage from council (and school) buildings, but also probably reducing car use in the city - and possibly compulsory waste recycling.

We can all individually make our own contribution, however. Cutting car (and aeroplane) journeys, eating less meat (meat-eating is a very inefficient way of getting food energy), making your home more energy efficient, using a sustainable electricity supplier (and so promoting alternatives such as wind turbines) and learning to share everything from cars to lawnmowers and washing machines will all help.

:: Intelligent travel

Just making simple changes to the way we get about could make a huge difference, says John Barrett of the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) in York.

SEI researchers in York carried out a pilot study in the city last year, cold-calling nearly 6,000 people and offering them advice on travel. Over 240 people took up the offer. They were given simple advice on bus routes, footpaths, Park & ride, and cycle routes.

The number of car journeys participants made fell by 16 per cent - making 'intelligent travel' a far cheaper and more sustainable method of reducing congestion than building new motorways at £20m a mile, John says.

:: Your ecological footprint

You can test your green credentials by working out your own ecological footprint.

This shows how much land you as a person need to sustain your lifestyle. It takes into account everything from the food you eat to the clothes you wear, the car you drive and the type of house you live in.

The footprint computes how much land would be needed to grow all the food, produce all the raw materials and dispose of all the rubbish and carbon dioxide needed to keep you in the manner to which you are accustomed.

You can calculate your own ecological footprint by logging on to www.earthday.net/footprint/index.asp

I have always considered myself to be reasonably green, driving a small car, walking to work and recycling much of my rubbish. My ecological footprint worked out at 4.1, which means I need 4.1 hectares of land to support me. This is less than the UK average of 5.3.

Across the world, however, there are only 1.8 hectares of land on average for every person living.

So if everyone in the world lived as well as me, we would need 2.3 planet earths to sustain us all, the website informed me. What we in the rich, developed West are doing is "nicking environmental space" in terms of food and resources from the world's poorer countries, according to Prof Whitelegg.

Updated: 09:12 Wednesday, February 16, 2005