The report, published by the British medical review The Lancet in a special issue, said that global warming will imperil health through malaria, cholera, heatwaves and hunger, but these problems can be eased or avoided if actions on climate change are taken immediately.

The report examined policies to reduce emissions from households, transport, electricity generation and agriculture in both developed and developing countries.

Researchers found that cutting carbon dioxide emissions would reduce many types of air pollution, especially tiny particles that lodge in the lungs and cause direct health damage.

Other benefits could come from encouraging more exercise and less meat consumption to improve heart health, according to the report.

Some scientists praised the study and said the research was sound.

“The science is really excellent; the modeling is quite good,” said Dr. Paul Epstein of the Harvard School of Medicine’s Center for Health and the Global Environment. “It really takes the whole field a step farther.” 

On Xinhua Web site: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-11/26/content_12543736.htm

In the statement “Copenhagen Diagnosis” — a warning to next month’s UN climate summit in Copenhagen, the experts on Tuesday urged actions to keep down the rising greenhouse gas emissions by 2015 or 2020 to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

“Climate change is accelerating beyond expectations,” the statement said, “accounting for ice-sheets and glaciers, global sea-level rise may exceed 1 meter by 2100, with a rise of up to 2 meters considered an upper limit.”

They said global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels were almost 40 percent higher in 2008 than in 1990.

“There have been no significant changes in the underlying warming trend,” they said.
They also warned in the 64-page report that “delay in action risks irreversible damage.”

The statement was jointly issued by 26 experts. Many of them were on the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which in 2007 foresaw a sea level rise of 18-59 cm by 2100.

Copenhagen meeting will be held on Dec. 7-18, aiming to reach a new UN plan to succeed the Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012. 

On Xinhua Web site: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-11/25/content_12536033.htm

The Catlin Arctic Survey team, led by explorer Pen Hadow, trekked through the northern part of the Beaufort Sea in the North Pole for 73 days earlier this year.

Across their 450-km route, the team found that most of the ice in the region is first-year ice that is only around 1.8 meters deep and will melt next summer. The region usually has contained thicker multiyear ice that does not melt so quickly.

“The Catlin Arctic Survey data supports the new consensus view… that the Arctic will be ice-free in summer within about 20 years, and that much of the decrease will be happening within 10 years.” said Professor Peter Wadhams, head of the polar ocean physics group at Cambridge University in Britain.

Martin Sommerkorn, senior climate change adviser for the World Wide Fund for Nature’s international Arctic programme, said the ice meltdown was happening “faster than we thought.”

“Such a loss of Arctic sea ice cover has recently been assessed to set in motion powerful climate feedbacks which will have an impact far beyond the Arctic itself,” he said.

But the short-term benefits of the melting could mean resource development and faster shipping. The Northwest Passage linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans could one day become a regular shipping lane. 

On Xinhua Web site: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-10/15/content_12235952.htm