Climate change triggers global warming and sea rise-related flooding; famine because of temperature and rain changes; income because of lack of natural resources; heat waves; and land and marine ecosystem failure. Graph by Raquelle Collins
By Raquelle Collins
Floods, famine, heat waves and ecosystem failure are predicted by the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, according to a leaked report released this weekend.
The panel is expected to issue the full report in March and a summary of the draft was released online on a climate sceptic’s website.
People living in large cities, like Toronto, are as vulnerable as the world’s poorest people in Third World countries, according to the summary.
The 29-page report is focused solely on global warming, but scientists say that a warmer world will increase death rates of both humans and animals because of the great effects the climate has on our lives.
Until the year 2050, “climate change will impact human health mainly by exacerbating health problems that already exist,” notes the report, compared to a future with no climate change.
Lindsay Walker, manager of sustainability at Humber College, said it’s not too late to reduce the impact that climate change could cause.
“We’re going to see a rise in our temperature, we’re seeing it already. We can’t go back, but we certainly don’t need it to rise as high as they’re predicting,” Walker told Humber News.
“If we continue our lives and don’t change anything whatsoever, then (temperatures) will rise to the highest, but if we start to make significant changes to how we live our lives and change the way we do things, then it will reduce the rising temperature,” she said.
David Rahamut, a second year accounting student, told Humber News that people don’t expect global warming to hit close to home.
“When global warming affects food production, we won’t have food to eat and food gets more expensive. People in that industry will lose their jobs and it creates a domino effect,” Rahamut said.
“People don’t expect to be affected by it, but when a heat waves comes, the vulnerable die, like old people and our own pets,” he said.
Climate change has an impact on economic growth and will add an additional burden to people living in poverty according to the report. It is expected that the repercussions of climate change will create new poverty pockets, particularly in urban areas.
View New Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report leaked in a larger map