Hottest October on record highlights challenges facing climate summit in Paris

Hottest October on record highlights challenges facing climate summit



PARIS: -- It is a sobering statistic ahead of crucial climate talks in Paris.

The world has seen its hottest October on record says NASA.

And with 2015 set to be the warmest year ever recorded – with all the effects that entails – experts are warning that man-made climate change must be tackled before it is too late.

“We have a lot of evidence that the climate is changing,” says French scientist Anny Cazenave of LEGOS-CNES (Laboratory for Studies in Geophysics and Spatial Oceanography).

“Temperatures are rising, the ice caps are melting, the oceans are getting warmer, sea levels are rising, and these observations are absolutely unequivocal. The future really is going to depend on what we humans decide to do in the years ahead and I think that the Paris climate meeting, the COP 21, is going to be a crucial event.”

A global deal to limit rising greenhouse gas emissions is being sought at the talks, set to begin on November 30, attended by more than 100 world leaders.

But the power of gas and oil giants makes Greenpeace in Russia pessimistic.

“The main problem lies in the inertia and lobbyism that we see in the traditional energy industry,” said Vladimir Chuprov, head of the Greenpeace Russia Energy Programme.

“Of course they don’t want to share out the finances, they want to maintain the status quo. And of course, neither renewable energy nor energy saving technologies have any chance in the near future.”

But without an effective agreement, the fear is that heat-waves, flash floods and other extreme weather events will become increasingly common, causing chaos and human misery.

Source: http://www.euronews.com/2015/11/19/hottest-october-on-record-highlights-challenges-facing-climate-summit/


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