Europe will suffer badly from climate change

With world leaders preparing to meet in South Africa next week in an attempt to create a new United Nations deal to reduce global carbon emissions and replace the Kyoto Protocol, which ends in 2012, a prominent scientist has urged politicians to "get out of the discussion room and look at what is coming". Speaking at the SciTechEurope conference in Brussels, organised by Public Service Events, Professor Colin Jones told governments to think beyond five-year election cycles so that an effective long-term intergovernmental deal could be put in place quickly – before it was too late to save the planet.

Jones, who is head of the European Commission's € 7m Earth System Model Bias Reduction and Assessing Abrupt Climate Change project and director of the Rossby Centre at the Swedish government agency SMHI, admitted that the plan to limit global warming to a two degree increase was probably out of reach – adding that there was "a 1 per cent chance" that the target would be met. He warned policy-makers that temperatures increased last year at the most rapid rate ever recorded, due to man-made carbon emissions. "We are taking our planet into new territory, a place we have never been before, and we don't know what the outcome will be," said Jones. "The pace at which we are heading towards the cliff is accelerating; the rate of temperature change is very different to anything we have ever experienced before. We are going to hit the problem very soon so political leaders need to get out of the discussion room and look at what is coming. But governments have a short-term horizon because we have five-year election cycles. And society values economic principles above the environment we live in so it's easier to listen to the sceptic's message, which says 'you don't need to change anything."

Overwhelming scientific data shows that there has been a dramatic rise in global temperatures since the 1960s, in close correlation with rising carbon emissions and industrialisation. And measurements through carbon dating, using ice cores, and calculations of the inconsistent spaces between tree rings have enabled researchers to chart approximate data back through thousands of years. But despite the weight of academic evidence, sceptics put any warming down to natural changes triggered by increased solar activity and sunspots. Another leak of emails from the University of East Anglia, in the United Kingdom, last week purported to throw further doubt on the scientific consensus - which backs the theory of anthropogenic climate change. But Jones dismissed the leak and insisted it was simply a rehash of the same messages that were previously leaked.

In a dark warning to Europe, he claimed that the Mediterranean region was already starting "to dry out" – with warming meaning the wet areas would become wetter and dry areas would become drier, as a result of "feedback loops". He explained: "The Med region will see intense water supply problems in the future. The amplification is caused by feedback processes. Also, we might see a thaw of the permafrost in northern latitudes, releasing more carbon dioxide and methane. And we know that the Arctic sea ice has been thinning since 1984 – much of it is not there in the summer now. In addition, carbon sinks like the Amazon may become less efficient as the atmosphere changes in a warmer world. The acidity of the ocean has been changing solidly for the past 20 years and coral reefs are starting to die."

Commentators suggest there is little hope of a new deal being struck by the UN, in South Africa. The conflict between developing nations, which want to continue their industrialisation at an exponential rate even if carbon emissions rise as a result, and developed nations leading the charge for CO2 reduction is unlikely to end anytime soon. With the economic crisis, some politicians are even calling for Europe to relinquish its role as a leading player in tackling climate change – suggesting that environmental regulation and green taxes will be too much for the continent's fragile finances to bear in light of the eurozone crisis.

Earlier, Professor Anthony Ryan of Sheffield University – chairing the SciTech conference – told delegates that harnessing solar power and embracing GM foods was the only way life could be sustained for a rapidly expanding global population that had already reached seven billion. "This is a new geological period dominated by human beings," said Ryan. "The world is in crisis, there are too many people and not enough food. There is not enough energy and too much environmental destruction as well as climate change and unsustainable economic growth. We are squeezing the earth's resources as air quality is getting worse and oil and gas are running out. All of these things have to be linked to policy and economics if we are to find solutions."