All posts in COP12

This is an incomplete post salvaged from the internet archive.

-by Michael

This Monday morning’s edition of ECO provides the following analysis of actions taken thus far at this Conference by the EU: “The waffling and mixed signals that characterised its performance in week one are unacceptable.” Seemingly aware of its floundering, the EU surprised everyone (or at least me) with a day long group of side events held at its pavilion. The side events all focus(ed) on research. This, of course, is not an action of any substantiality for progress in the plenaries. However, it does provide some interesting information from research projects that have been supported by the EU.
I attended a morning side event focusing on impacts on water due to climate change. It consisted of presentations from four scientists. The first of these was given on how global water cycles and their extremes will respond to future drivers of climate change. The drivers would be increasing population, water consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, and changing land use patterns. It was stressed that all of these drivers are very much interrelated. On the issue of consumption, it was highlighted that most of the water consumed globally is consumed by agriculture. There is a great disparity in the world in economic/physical water scarcity. The latest climate models predict that throughout this century, the areas that are dry now will keep getting drier, and the wet areas will become even more wet. For models predicting the quanitity of future rainfall, there is a much greater variability than for those models for temperature increase, which have a virtual consensus. What is sure is that there will be many more extremes in the form of floods and droughts.