http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Science/...589517-ap.html

Flooding, heat wave, melting glaciers across Europe result of global
warming
By JAN M. OLSEN




COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) - Rising sea levels, melting glaciers in the
Alps and more deadly heat waves are coming for Europeans because of
global warming, Europe's environmental agency warned Wednesday.

The European Environment Agency said much more needs to be done -and
fast. Climate change "will considerably affect our societies and
environments for decades and centuries to come," its 107-page report
said.

It said rising temperatures could eliminate three-quarters of the
alpine glaciers by 2050 and bring repeats of Europe's mammoth floods
two years ago and the heat wave that killed thousands and burned up
crops last summer. The rise in sea levels along Europe's coasts is
likely to accelerate, it added.

Global warming has been evident for years, but the problem is becoming
acute, Jacqueline McGlade, executive director of the Copenhagen-based
agency, told The Associated Press. "What is new is the speed of
change," she said.

McGlade said action is needed at all levels in Europe -continental,
regional, national and local levels. She said, for example, that
European nations should insist climate change be on the agenda of
international free-trade talks.

Greenpeace welcomed the report, saying the series of flooding, heat
waves and melting glaciers "make people become more and more aware of
the consequences of global warming," said Steve Sawyer of Greenpeace
International.

Global warming is believed to be caused by human activities, in
particular emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases such as carbon
dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels.

The European Union has been a leader in pushing for implementation of
the Kyoto protocol, a UN pact drawn up in 1997 to combat climate
change by reducing carbon-dioxide emissions worldwide in 2010 to eight
per cent below 1990 levels.

So far 123 countries, including Canada and all 25 EU members, have
signed, but it isn't in effect because it hasn't reached the required
level of nations accounting for 55 per cent of the industrialized
world's emissions.

The United States, the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases,
has refused to ratify, arguing the agreement would hurt its economy,
and Russia also hasn't signed.

Russian President Vladimir Putin repeatedly expressed reservations
about the pact in the past year, but in May he promised to speed up
ratification in return for EU backing of Russia's bid to join the
World Trade Organization.

Wednesday's report, Impacts of Europe's Changing Climate, urges that
the Kyoto protocol be adopted, saying climate changes "will
considerably affect our societies and environments for decades and
centuries to come."

It said the 1990s were the warmest decade on record, and the three
hottest years recorded -1998, 2002 and 2003 -occurred in the last six
years, with the average global warming rate now rising at almost 0.2
degrees Celsius per decade.

The report singled out summer floods across Europe two years ago and
last year's summer heat wave in western and southern Europe as recent
examples of how destructive extreme weather can be.

The flooding killed about 80 people in 11 countries, affected more
than 600,000 and caused economic losses equivalent to at least $24
billion Cdn, according to the agency.

More than 20,000 deaths, many among elderly people, were recorded
during the European heat wave in 2003, which also caused up to 30 per
cent of crop harvests in many southern countries to fail, the EEA
said.

The report said melting shrank glaciers in the Alps by 10 per cent in
2003 alone and predicted three-quarters of them could be gone
altogether by 2050.

European sea levels rose by 0.8 to three millimetres per year in the
last century. The rate of increase is projected to be two to four
times higher during this century.

The agency is sponsored by the 25 EU countries as well as Bulgaria,
Romania, Turkey, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.