From the world bank…sound the general alarm! (sound of klaxons) But see the data at the end.
4-degrees briefing for the World Bank: The risks of a future without climate policy
Humankind’s emissions of greenhouse gases are breaking new records every year. Hence we’re on a path towards 4-degree global warming probably as soon as by the end of this century. This would mean a world of risks beyond the experience of our civilization – including heat waves, especially in the tropics, a sea-level rise affecting hundreds of millions of people, and regional yield failures impacting global food security. These are some of the results of a report for the World Bank, conducted by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and Climate Analytics in Berlin. The poorest in the world are those that will be hit hardest, making development without climate policy almost impossible, the researchers conclude.
“The planetary machinery tends to be jumpy, this is to respond disproportionately to disruptions that come with the manmade greenhouse effect,” PIK’s director Hans Joachim Schellnhuber points out. “If we venture far beyond the 2-degree guardrail, towards 4 degrees, we risk crossing tipping points in the Earth system.” This could be the case with coral reefs which face collapse under unabated global warming, or with the Greenland ice sheet. To melt the ice sheet would take thousands of years, yet this might be an irreversible process that could start soon. “The only way to avoid this is to break with the fossil-fuel-age patterns of production and consumption,” says Schellnhuber.
Climate impacts: Heat waves, sea-level rise, yield failures
Already today impacts of climate change are observed. The Russian heat wave in 2010, according to preliminary estimates, produced a death toll of several thousand, annual crop failure of about 25%, and economic losses of about US$15 billion. Extreme events like this at 4 degrees global warming would become “the new normal” in some parts of the world, according to the report. In the tropics, the coolest months at the end of the century are likely to be substantially warmer than the warmest months today.
Sea level, under this scenario, would rise by 50 to 100 centimeters within this century, and more so in coming centuries. The rate of rise varies from one region to the other, depending on sea currents and other factors. Projections suggest that sea-level rise will be strongest in countries like the Philippines, Mexico, and India.
Within economic sectors, too, tipping effects with rapidly increasing damages can occur, for instance in agriculture. Already, observations showed that important cereals are sensitive to temperature increases passing certain thresholds, resulting in large-scale yield failure. Changes in the water cycle can aggravate this, when droughts occur or flooding affects farmed land.
World Bank President Kim: “A 4-degree warmer world can, and must be, avoided”
“The report draws from the current state of science and delivers new analysis of heat waves and regional sea-level rise, so of course there remain some uncertainties,” says William Hare, co-founder of Climate Analytics in Berlin and guest scientist at PIK. “We work with that by defining risk as potential damage multiplied with the probability – a rather improbable event can be a great risk if its impacts are huge.”
World Bank President Jim Yong Kim who was nominated early this year by US President Barack Obama and assumed his new position in July, has personally been briefed on the 4-degrees report by Schellnhuber some weeks ago in Washington D.C.. “A 4-degree warmer world can, and must be, avoided – we need to hold warming below 2 degrees,” President Kim now said in a statement. “Lack of action on climate change threatens to make the world our children inherit a completely different world than we are living in today. Climate change is one of the biggest single challenges facing development, and we need to assume the moral responsibility to take action on behalf of future generations, especially the poorest.”
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Tom Nelson points out this tweet from “The Carbon Brief””.
Twitter / carbonbrief: The World Bank 4 degree report …
The World Bank 4 degree report in full here: http://ow.ly/foBEX and summary for policymakers here: http://ow.ly/foBGN
From the summary:
This report spells out what the world would be like if it warmed by 4 degrees Celsius, which is what scientists are nearly unanimously predicting by the end of the century, without serious policy changes….The science is unequivocal that humans are the cause of global warming, and major changes are already being observed: global mean warming is 0.8°C above pre industrial levels; oceans have warmed by 0.09°C since the 1950s and are acidifying; sea levels rose by about 20 cm since pre-industrial times and are now rising at 3.2 cm per decade;
.09 degrees? That’s still in the noise band of the measurements…only bankers would tell us we are a few pennies off and this will lead to catastrophe.
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jgmccabe says:
November 19, 2012 at 7:52 am.
What utter drivel; what kind of retards are these people?
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Proffessional ones, apparently.
What utter bollocks.
sarc on/
And Kim is correct. Lets get in some windmills and our problems are solved.
……………hang on a cotton pickin minute. What’s this we see in Germany? Home of the PIK.
jgmccabe;
What utter drivel; what kind of retards are these people?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The kind that understand politics. Soon you will hear politicians saying things like “even the World Bank says….blah blah blah” when trying to justify carbon taxes. My understanding is that the current head of the World Bank obtained his position in large part due to lobbying from Obama. See how one hand washes the other? Right after the election the Obama admin starts floating the idea of carbon taxes, the World Bank announces a new study, and being the World Bank, don’t have the stigma of the discredited IPCC sticking to their opinions. Watch for the NGO’s to trumped this to no end at Doha.
Not to mention that the “solution” will be some financial arrangement where “polluters” pay some large amount of money into some fund which is then used to compensate “victims”. Any guess who will get to manage that fund? For a slight “management” fee?
When politicians and bankers try and sell you a tax on the premise that it is good for you, grasp your wallet tightly and don’t let go.
So – if the banks are so concerned – why don’t they sart by giving ALL of their annual profits direct to governments to use for AGW mitigation. After all, their profits ulimately come from the people – why don’t they give it back to the people to help mitigate the impending doom?
And they say we are in bed with big money, now look who is in bed with the world bank.
Kim’s statement also contains the “97% of scientists” rubbish, enough said.
The ‘tipping point’ is now somewhere beyond 4°? I though (we HAVE been told!) that the tipping point had already been passed.
“The oceans are acidifying?” Where? The pH of sea water varies considerably with location, but the bulk of the sea *surface* water (the only region for which we have anywhere near a data set that is extensive enough to be considered a ‘survey’) has a pH in the weakly alkaline ‘buffer’ range (8.0 to 8.15) of the bicarbonate system: http://www.earthlyissues.com/oceanacid.htm
Increasing CO2 content merely increases the buffer capacity of the system and provides additional bicarbonate resources for the growth of marine life such as plankton and coral.
Four degrees would put us on a par with the Eemian interglacial, which tried but didn’t completely succeed in melting Greenland before this last ice age hit. Maybe we’ll have better luck.
Then there’s that sea level rise, but U of Colorado can fix it with their glacial isostatic adjustment, which is accelerating at an unprecedented pace.
That Potsdam Institute has shown up here quite a few times. Wonder who’s funding them?
Well there are true believers in the innermost circles in that org. I know this from personal connections. This is no surprise.
World Bank. IMF, OECD are all a dump for unemployed statist politicians so what is the surprise?
0.8 degr C up since pre industrial times. (No mention of the lack of increase for the last 15 or so years)
So that is all for an increase in CO2 of 33% since pre industrial times, not bad.
Sea level is “already” increasing by 3.2 cm per decade (that sounds bad). That makes it 3.2 mm per year ( that makes it sound like nothing to worry about) and that is the average for the last century and plenty of indications that it is slowing down.
Oceans warming by all of 0.09 C, that is the problem when you get more accurate equipment doing the testing.
Does the world bank now have shares in solar power companies? In a roundabout sense they do I guess, perhaps that is what is driving this.
Always remember, what prof.Edenhofer of the Potsdam based PIK siad in rthe Swiss newspaper NZZ: It has nothing to do with climate. It is only for redributing the wealth from the industrialised nations to the others.
…and the propaganda machine hums on.
The poor are already suffering, world bank policies mean African nations can not borrow from world bank organs to build coal fired power stations, hydro electric dams are held up and of course the IMF is still collecting interest on money that never existed.
Without reliable electricity supply civilized life as we know it is impossible.
4 degrees is a safe bet, if kyoto had been implemented, these same politicians would be bragging about how the global temperatures are steady or falling.See we fixed global warming, ect.
To me CAGW/CC/Whatever its called this week, is eugenics rearing its ugly head again. the damage is disproportionately done to nonwhite populations and population control is the unspoken plan. Far too many of the people I have challenged on this nonsense acknowledge that they believe there are too many people on this planet, that population is their primary fear, how if everyone had our lifestyle the planet is doomed. But they are not willing to hold their own breath until their problem with carbon dioxide emissions goes away. Yet if I do not share their hysteria its because I don’t care for the poor? Well like the useful idiots of the past, if the alarmed ones succeed, we will all be poor and angry together. Most amazingly there is widespread acknowledgement that CO2 emission reductions will do nothing, but its important to get off our evil oil addiction. And that this belief is the best science not a new religion.
How does it go ,there is a season….
97% of the banks agree…
Ah, Bankers, sorry, misread that for a minute!
@AlexS – “unemployed [???]” statist politicians? Hardly. They are employed as “politician emeritus” with portfolio and without the pesky need to be elected.
I forgot the most important part of what MOST (Not Al Gore and company)have been saying about global climate change and warming IF, IF, IF, IF, IF, IF, IF IF & IF. Well if IF happens and IF happens and so on. I say, Well IF the sun goes into a very quiet period (Started in 2008) IT could start a new ice age.
The thing that is sad is the leaders that are suppose to guide people in government around the world. The leaders are not suppose to say things that are not backed by data and scare people so they can get rich off them. Now Al Gore has said there is no IF, it has already happened. I guess he is the only smart one in the room already cashing & cashed in (Shows, Talks ,Appearances,Donations, Donations, Donations for future show one year away, T-shirts from china?)and trying to keep scheme going for the ones he has trained. Is that why President Obama made Misleading and false comments (acordcing to data global temp charts I have seen)last week about climate change with temps the past 10 years?
I know many people who are just fed, up including my self. Sorry for my venting going on
This study is from PIK in Germany, home of Team member Rahmstorf (no need to say anything more), Schellnhuber and Edenhofer, the guy who was in charge for the IPCC report about renewables featuring prominently a Greenpeace lead author’s study.
German climate alarmisim has successfully spread its influence beyond the German borders,
Rahmstorf is Hockey Stick Team member, and his group highly connected with the Swiss, now leading IPCC AR5.
Schellnhuber, advisor of the German chancellor and the EU, had huge influence on the British as a director of the Tyndal Centre from 2001-2005, with some details rather disturbing:
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2011/11/29/schellnhuber-and-the-tyndall-centre.html
That the World Bank selects them for their study, tells you a lot about the World Bank.
“The poorest in the world are those that will be hit hardest, making development without climate policy almost impossible, the researchers conclude.”
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They completely ignore the fact that development with climate policy will be completely impossible.
@AlexS – “unemployed [???]” statist politicians? Hardly. They are employed as “politician emeritus” with portfolio and without the pesky need to be elected.
Okay. Point taken i should correct then:
World Bank. IMF, OECD are all a dump for unelectable or in a career iatos statist politicians so what is the surprise?
Sick Al Gore just tweeted report ten mins as A frightening new @WorldBank report on the climate crisis describes a “doomsday scenario” for the world’s poor,, already has over 100 retweets https://twitter.com/algore
Slot machine jack pot for Al Gore donations
“…we need to assume the moral responsibility to take action on behalf of future generations”
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In the United States alone, we charge over a trillion dollars a year to the credit cards of future generations. Does the World Bank want to take action to reduce this debt burden? No, not at all. Instead, they want to increase spending in a vain attempt to reduce the impacts of climate change that may or may not happen next century and may or may not be more harmful than beneficial. A rapidly accelerating public debt is a clear threat to future generations. But this certain threat they choose to ignore to tilt at windmills.
I won’t pretend to speak for the rest of the world, but in the US, the baby boomer years were the last of the well educated years in this country. Since then, the education system has failed miserably, thus generating literally generations of undereducated people. The “failure” of humanity thus falls on those in the “boomer” category since they are practically the only ones that are intelligent and educated enough to see the farce of what is going on, and even though we try to point it out, we still end up the scapegoats. I will take that mantle to the grave – hopefully not too soon, of course – and will feel sorry for those that cannot think for themselves because there has always been the media to do their thinking for them, can’t do math because there always has been calculators, and can’t think beyond their loins and smart phones. We created a world wasted on those incapable of understanding if there is one sure thing in this world it’s that you can’t ever count on it being the same tomorrow as it is today. All things change, climate included, and history, which they prefer to ignore, proves that fact.
Is this a science website? Sounds like a bar-room. How about some explicit counter-arguments , references and sources? Let’s grow up!
From the article: “The planetary machinery tends to be jumpy, this is to respond disproportionately to disruptions that come with the manmade greenhouse effect,” PIK’s director Hans Joachim Schellnhuber points out.”
Is this the same Herr Schellnhuber who doesn’t seem to care much for democracy and human rights?
http://notrickszone.com/2011/03/29/another-german-will-soon-unveil-a-master-plan-for-a-transformation-of-society/
Where in German history have we seen someone before who thought like that? Hmm. Now let me think……..