Climate change: another sobering reminder

IN recent years, the world has been witness to an unusually large number of extreme weather events. The most deadly in our part of the world was Typhoon Haiyan, which devastated parts of the Philippines last year. In 2012, there was "Superstorm Sandy", a destructive hurricane that hit the North-eastern United States. This year, the UK suffered its worst floods since 1776. There have also been severe cyclones in India and Myanmar, floods in Thailand and Pakistan, bush-fires in Australia, the list goes on. Even Singapore has not been immune. We have just endured the driest February since 1869.

Much scientific opinion is of the view that these events might have something in common: climate change. And so it was, that at a press conference on the latest report of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released on March 31, one of its authors, Christopher Fields, pointed out: "There's no question that we live in a world that's already altered by climate change."

The report makes sobering, if not alarming, reading. The impact of climate change could be potentially "severe, pervasive and irreversible", it says. Drawing on updated scientific evidence, the report's authors point out that the effects have, if anything, turned out worse than predicted in 2007, when the last major IPCC report was issued. Looking ahead, the scientists see climate change negatively affecting crop yields; episodes of extreme precipitation and flooding in some areas and more droughts and a depletion of groundwater in others; cases of extinction of marine life; higher heat-related deaths and general increases in ill-health, more hotspots of hunger; and risks of violent conflict sparked by one or more of the above. And that is only a partial list.