Global Warming London at Risk

Global Warming – London at risk

Many newspapers have been reporting on Global Warming and the dangers it poses, these papers include The Telegraph, The Sun, The Independent, The Financial Times, and The Guardian. Key figures have been quoted within the media such as Lord Stern, Gordon Brown and the Mayor Boris Johnson. Prince Charles was quoted in The Sun as saying “we have many solutions to the crisis – we know about energy efficiency, renewable energy, and how to reduce deforestation.” All ways to help reduce global warming for governments; the individual person is also a key to success by being equipped with energy efficient light bulbs and conserving energy and water.

The aim of the Media’s campaign on Global Warming is to highlight the dangers of temperature rise with the risk to economy here in the UK as well as internationally and the danger of the weather to the World! The papers are influencing people to help by doing simple things such as buying eco-friendly cars that help to cut carbon emissions, which will help to hopefully stop the global warming tipping point which would as scientists and campaigners say lead to climate chaos – with dangers of flooding, droughts, heat-waves, warmer-wetter winters and other unusual weather. There is also danger of agriculture being devastated by global warming.

The Mayor of London has outlined a strategy under the Greater London Authority Act to help people live more efficiently and to help deal with stopping the World from the global warming tipping point – London was reported as being hotter than central Spain a few weeks ago by The Telegraph. The strategy includes solar panels, planting of trees, reducing water leaks, water meters, “designing new buildings and adapting old ones to minimise the need for cooling facilities.”

Mr Johnson is quoted in The Guardian  as saying “we need to concentrate efforts to slash carbon emissions and become more energy efficient in order to prevent dangerous climate change – it endangers our pre-eminence as one of the World’s leading cities.” There are 12.5 million people at risk in London from the effects of global warming; species would have to be relocated after river’s dry up. The Independent reported Lord Stern saying “much of Southern Europe would look like the Sahara – many of the major rivers of the world, serving billions of people would dry up in the dry seasons or re-route – billions of people would have to relocate as a result.” Ashok Sinha director of ‘Stop Climate Chaos Coalition’ was quoted in The Sun as saying “100 million people could become climate change refugees.”

The World is taking heed of Lord Stern’s warnings as they did in the past when many international governments were studying his report on the risks of Global Warming. The headlines recently said that Lord Stern had underestimated the effects of global warming, The Telegraph’s headline read “Lord Stern – it’s even worse than I thought”, The Independent reported not only that Polar Bears are relying on the World to counter global warming but also that Lord Stern said that the cost of not acting on global warming would mean costs of double than what he estimated, “meaning it could cost a third of the world’s wealth” and cost a lot to the world’s money and countries’ economy. Lord Stern is the World Bank’s former chief economist. The International Energy Agency has also backed Lord Stern’s estimates of costs.  

The Telegraph reported the lowest of temperature rises, reporting on research done by the Met Office’s Hadley Centre on behalf of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs – “In Wales, predicted temperature rises of up to 2.9˚C by 2080.” The FT reported on a report done by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – the body of the world’s leading climate change scientists convened by the United Nations – “it predicted a temperature rise of 3˚C within the next 100 years with catastrophic consequences for the planet, unless greenhouse gas emissions were stabilised and then cut within the next decade.”

The Financial Times reported that “Lord Stern has come under attack from economists and climate change sceptics since his report, which some sceptics regard as scaremongering.” Many newspapers reported on Lord Stern’s estimates of dangerous temperature rises from 3˚C to 4˚C, 5˚C, 6˚C and even 7˚C by the end of the 21^st century. The Independent reported interesting facts that humans have been around for 100,000 years and that temperature rises of 5˚C has not been seen for 30-50 million years and “we haven’t seen 3˚C for a few million years, and we don’t know what that looks like either.”

In December a major UN meeting will be held to work on a new climate treaty such as the Kyoto Protocol climate treaty in an attempt to tackle global warming – the media and campaigners will be important in pressuring governments into abiding by the treaty as they have done by criticising Japan last week. It is predicted that the Sun will die in approximately 5 billion years.