There is still time to take action on climate change, NYU professor says

Vesela Todorova

• Last Updated: November 15. 2009 10:55PM UAE / November 15. 2009 6:55PM GMT

ABU DHABI // If the world followed the development models of countries such as the UAE or the US, the challenge of climate change would be insurmountable, the author of one of the most noted books on the subject said yesterday.

Tyler Volk, an associate professor of biology at New York University (NYU), is one of the most prominent scientists investigating the carbon cycle – the process by which carbon circulates through the land, ocean and atmosphere.

Prof Volk, who last year published CO2 Rising: The World’s Greatest Environmental Challenge, yesterday gave a public lecture in Abu Dhabi, organised by the NYU campus in the capital.

The per capita emissions of the average US citizen were four times higher than the world average, Prof Volk said, while the average UAE resident was responsible for emissions that were seven times higher.

“These countries cannot be a model for the future,” Prof Volk said. “Anybody will recognise that it will be disastrous.”

Despite recent efforts to invest in sustainable solutions, the UAE had been ranked among the world’s top per capita emitters, Prof Volk said, citing data compiled by the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, which is under the aegis of the US Department of Energy.

The centre’s estimates for 2006 show that the UAE, with an average of nine metric tonnes of carbon per person per year, was the world’s third-largest per capita emitter. Qatar and Kuwait were numbers one and two respectively.

Although the environmental impact of energy-intensive economies is a concern to activists, their ability to generate high levels of per capita wealth makes them attractive models for poor countries keen to improve the living conditions of their population.

The good news, Prof Volk said, was that there was still time to address the challenge of high levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and contain their negative effects. “We are not falling off a cliff in 10 years,” he said.

Six gases are recognised as having the greatest greenhouse effect on the planet, of which carbon dioxide (CO2) has the largest share in terms of global emission volumes. From 1800 to 2000, CO2 levels rose by more than 30 per cent.

However, it is hard to predict exactly what changes the rising levels of greenhouse gases will bring about. By 2100, the increase in temperature could be as high as six degrees Celsius. Even limiting warming to a modest two degrees, the target now increasingly accepted as a best-case scenario, may bring about serious changes.

It is expected that rainstorms will increase in intensity but some regions, including the Gulf, are likely to experience more severe droughts.

The ocean, which absorbs large amounts of CO2, will acidify. This will affect the shell-forming creatures that are the basis of the marine food chain. In addition, around 30 per cent of the species associated with coral reef systems are at risk of becoming extinct if temperatures go up by between one and three degrees.

vtodorova@thenational.ae