Climate Witness - Asian Geographic magazine issue 3/2008
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REVEALING THE IMPACT OF GLOBAL WARMING Environment Text NIGEL ALLAN A rice farmer in Japan struggles against a surge of destructive insects and increased temperatures. A mountain guide in Nepal watches with concern as glacia l lakes grow and threaten vil lages with catastrophic flooding. In the Sundarbans delta ofIndia, a family home is twice destroyed by coastal erosion. On Kabara, a remote Fijian island, villagers find it increasingly difficult to c atch fish a nd grow food. The graphs of temperature rise and predictions ofdifferent climate change scenarios are now familiar thanks to the work of Al Gore, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and others, but on the ground – this is what climate change looks like. There are likely millions of stories like these throughout Asia; all with their own personal take on the impact of climate cha nge and the efforts of people to adapt to an uncertain future. WWF, the global conservation organisation, is asking people to share their stories as part of its Climate Witness B e n T u b b y Climate Witness WWF’s Climate Change Work in the Asia Pacific WWF has a net work of offices and field s taff working wit h governments, businesses and communities on climate change and other issues across the Asia Pacific region. As the region will be at the front line of climate change impacts, WWF believes that Asia Pacific nations have a strong imperative to act decisively to avoid dangerous levels of warming and causing irreversible damage to ecosystems. Governments must limi t global warming to well below two- degrees Celcius-above-preind ustrial-levels if the worst impacts of climate change are to be avoided. WWF’s work on climate change, including the Climate Witness Programme is done in partnership with HP. Programme to reveal both the individual impact of climate change and the global scale of the threat. By linking directly to the realities of rapid climate change on everyday people, Climate Witness highlights the urgent need for governments to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and provide clean energy solutions. The work of Climate Witness is supported by over 100 scientists who provide scientific context to each of the individual testimonies. Climate Witnesses are also engaged in solutions to limit the impact of climate change and seek out opportunities that will have a positive result for the environment and their quality of life. In most cases, cli mate change is one stress amongst many. However, the impact of an unstable climate has consequences that are pervasive and complex, as these Climate Witness stories reveal:
