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Gordon Shepherd, WWF international policy and Martin Sommerkorn, WWF Arctic research, at Geneva climate conference

Photo: Marco Tedesco, WWF

Complete coverage of the WCC-3 by GenevaLunch

Conference is 31 August - 4 September 2009

Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - One-quarter of the world’s population is likely to be affected by rising ocean levels provoked by melting Arctic ice, a WWF study released 2 September shows. The Arctic is heating up at twice the rate of the rest of the Earth, the new Arctic Climate Feedbacks report shows. As a result, the level of oceans can be expected to rise by one metre by the end of the 21st century, twice as fast as current predictions suggest.

The report pulls together the most recent data covering the Arctic and its impact. It includes the ice sheets of Greenland and West Antarctica in global sea level projections, which were not included in the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) 2007 assessment of the Arctic, widely relied on. The addition of these areas appears likely to change temperature and precipitation patterns in Europe and North America, affecting agriculture, forestry and water supplies, the new data shows.

Photo: Marco Tedesco, WWF

The Arctic holds twice as much carbon as the rest of the world and the study indicates that as warming speeds up, carbon released by warmer soils could reach significant levels.

”Simply put, if we do not keep the Arctic cold enough, people across the world will suffer the effects,” says Martin Sommerkorn, the WWF’s senior climate change advisor who covers the Arctic.

The WWF has issued the report in the run-up to world leaders meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark in December 2009, where they will negotiate a new treaty on carbon emissions.

”If we can convince the politicians who represent people that climate and people are the same thing, then maybe we will get somewhere in Copenhagen,” Gordon Shepherd told a group of science experts at the World Climate Conference (WCC-3) in Geneva to whom the report was presented.