Arti Mulchand, Straits Times 15 Nov 07
Govts need to act on alerts about earth's fragile state, says climate expert
YOU don't argue with your cardiologist when he says you need a bypass.
In the same way, governments need to heed warnings by 'planetary physicians' about the earth's fragile state and what needs to be done, says a climate expert.
'You don't yell at your doctor and say medical science is incomplete...If you wait for that heart attack, it will involve even more risk and expense,'' said Professor Richard Somerville.
A distinguished professor emeritus from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in the United States, he is here to speak on climate change under the Lee Kuan Yew Distinguished Visitor programme.
He hopes the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 4th Assessment Report, now being finalised in Spain, will put significant pressure on governments when they negotiate a successor to the Kyoto Protocol.
This takes place in Bali next month, at the United Nations Framework Convention Climate Change meetings.
Prof Somerville is a coordinating lead author of the report, which sums up the scientific consensus on global warming, and pins the blame on human activities. It also calls for drastic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions to stem the impact.
The Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012, obliges 36 industrial nations to cut their combined emissions by about 5 per cent below levels measured in 1990. But the world's two biggest emitters, the US and China, have refused to take on mandatory emission curbs.
What makes the situation 'politically difficult' is that investing in the environment now may not have an immediate payoff, he said.
Still, there is much that prosperous countries, including the US, can do, he said. 'But I can say that because I'm not running for office,'' he deadpanned.
The key could lie in public pressure, and he is encouraged by heightened awareness over the issues.
Some of the science behind the IPCC report is now accepted as 'settled', and the 'aura' of Mr Al Gore, who shared the Nobel Peace Prize with the IPCC, has given environmental issues a higher profile, he said.
Recent 'spectacular weather phenomena', like the 2003 heat wave in Europe, the devastating Hurricane Katrina in the US in 2005 and the melting of the Arctic sea ice, have also made the problem seem much more immediate, he added.
He rubbishes talk by 'contrarians' that the issue of climate change has been overstated, and likens it to the lobby by the tobacco industry decades ago denying that smoking had implications for health.
'Some of the same techniques are being used here. I believe their slogan was 'Doubt is our product'...
'There is increased scientific certainty and we are seeing changes in climate. It's not simply speculation any more. There are different ways to behave and they have consequences.'
Prof Somerville, the 59th Lee Kuan Yew Distinguished Visitor, will deliver his final public lecture on the IPCC tomorrow at 6pm, at Lecture Theatre 2 at Nanyang Technological University.
