Climate change is for real and people are causing it: Professor
KUWAIT: Another awareness seminar about climate change was held yesterday at Kuwait University’s main campus in Shuwaikh. The event was organized by the university in association with the French Embassy in Kuwait in support of the upcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP21) in Paris. France has been organizing events in various countries as a prelude to the biggest climate change summit, which will be held from November 30 to December 11.
French Ambassador to Kuwait Christian Nakhle emphasized France’s commitment to the COP 21, stressing continuous preparation to welcome thousands of delegations from all over the world. According to Nakhle, COP21, also known as ‘Paris Climate 2015’, has side events in many countries to prepare everyone for the global conference.
Widespread agreement
Speakers yesterday included Professor Eric Guilyardi, who presented the facts about climate change. He said climate change is for real and people are causing it. “There is widespread agreement among scientists, about 95 percent of us, who believe it’s real and people are causing it, but it can be mitigated if not limited if we choose to,” he stressed. He defines climate and weather as follows - climate is the average of weather over a long time period, while climate varies with seasons, years, decades, centuries or millennia.
“Weather is what you get, climate is what you expect, and the climate will tell you which clothes to buy and wear,” he said. According to Guilyardi, climate change is real, as evidence by scientists shows it’s quite alarmingly visible now compared to 100 years back. “We see a rapid change of climate over millennia and it was because of various unkind human activities such as CO2 emissions over years, and the blow was felt only in recent years. The temperature rose by 1 degree Celsius from 1950-2000, drastically changing the sea level, meaning unprecedentedly rising of seawaters in the past years,” he added.
“The problem of a one degree rise is like human temperature; if it’s above 40, we don’t know whether you’ll survive or not. The temperature right now is pretty close to that. If you remember in 2003, a heat wave in Europe killed thousands. The problem is that 15 days of heat may increase to one month, and just imagine the casualties if this happens,” Guilyardi warned.
Important facts
Dima Al-Khatib, Deputy Resident Representative of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), presented her agency’s activities here and some important facts related to the environment and climate change. “We have been working in 170 countries all over the world. In Kuwait, we started our work in 1964. Our mandate as of every other UNDP office is to support the implementation of the country’s development plan and development strategies. We work with the country’s program and action plan. We focus on four areas - socioeconomic development, environment, human development and governance, south-south cooperation and tripartite collaboration,” Khatib said.
The United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP21) is a yearly conference that aims to achieve a legally binding and universal agreement on climate change, preservation of the planet, and reducing the greenhouse effect. Due to the alarmingly increased rate of greenhouse emissions worldwide today, France is targeting an ambitious goal of reducing it by 40 percent by 2030, 60 percent by 2040 and finally 80-95 percent by 2050 (compared to 1990), to ensure a safer future for generations to come.