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England
and Wales experienced widespread flooding, with damages estimated
at £3 billion ($6 billion), during the wettest May to July period
since records began in 1766.
South
Asia experienced the worst flooding in decades, affecting at least
25 million people.
In
Africa, 15 countries from Ghana to Ethiopia were affected by
severe flooding, which displaced hundreds of thousands of people
and seriously damaged food security in the area.
UN
Science Panel Confirms Effects of Humans on Global Climate
In 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the
Nobel prize–winning body of more than 1,250 scientists from
around the world, released its Fourth Assessment Report, which
detailed the likely climatic consequences if we continue to pump
greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. It reported that unabated
emissions would result in a temperature rise of between 1.1 and
6.4oC
during the 21st century.
To
put this in perspective, temperatures over the last 100 years rose
by a comparably small 0.74oC, and yet this appears to
have already contributed to trends of more heat waves, longer and
more intense droughts, higher sea level, more frequent heavy rain,
and stronger hurricanes.
With
2008 expected to be another warm year with global temperatures
forecast to be 0.37 oC above the long-term average,
urgent action to reduce CO2 emissions is required by us
all.
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