ADPblog

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Research on polar climate change

Janez Poto?nik, the European Commissioner for Science and Research, gave this speech on research leading to policy at an international symposium addressing "Polar Environment and Climate: The Challenges" on March 5th in Brussells.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is a great pleasure for me to open this Symposium entitled “Polar environment and climate – The Challenges”, which marks the beginning of the International Polar Year.

Research into our Earth’s poles is not new. After all, the first international polar year was in 1882. And the most recent was in 1957. That was also the year when the European Community was created.

Now, as we celebrate 50 years of building up the European region, we also see the effects of 50 years of breaking down our polar regions. For example, in the last 50 years, temperatures in the Antarctic Peninsula have risen by 2.5 degrees.

And parts of the Antarctic Peninsula, along with Alaska and Siberia, have been the three fastest warming regions on the planet in the last two decades.

Why is this climate change important? Because the Antarctic acts as a buffer, protecting us from excessively rapid warming. It accounts for 90% of the ice in the world and is over three times the size of Europe.

In the North Pole, the Arctic Ocean will be ice-free in summer by 2060 if the current warming trends continue. This will not only affect the four million people living in that area. It will also affect many others, including here in Europe: in terms of our climate, our ecosystems and our living conditions.

Today, awareness about the environment and our changing climate is probably the highest it has ever been.

It is an issue which stretches from local government to international institutions, from public sector to private sector, from supermarkets to Hollywood’s Oscar ceremony.

The argument about whether climate change is influenced by mankind seems to be over. The recent conclusions of the fourth International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) gave the clearest indications that we have contributed to this change.

And the business case for acting sooner rather than later was put forcefully by the ‘Stern’ report.. It stated clearly that ‘the benefits from strong, early action on climate change outweigh the costs’.

So why is polar research so important to tackling climate change?

The North and South Poles hold key information. And it is information that becomes more important each day. The Poles act as a sort of environmental library, having documented changes over many ages.

They give us a clue as to what will happen in the next stage of climate change, from previous examples. Their information relates not just to changes in climate, but in ecosystems and societies.

So the launch this year of the EU’s new Seventh Research and Development Framework Programme, called also FP7, comes at an important time. Climate change and polar research will feature in FP7, which lasts for seven years and has a budget of over 54 billion Euros.

The first FP7 calls for proposals have already been published. They include topics related to polar research and climate change. Future FP7 calls are also planned in this area, including ones focusing on: sea-level rise, UV radiation, climate change impacts on biodiversity and ecosystems, and human health issues.

The overall climate themes that FP7 will develop include:

* Climate change impacts on the atmosphere and on the water cycle and resources
* downscaling models to predict local impacts;
* Natural, social and economic impacts of climate change and related extremes events;
* Mitigation and adaptation strategies and
* Awareness raising.

I find this last point particularly important. We need to make people aware of climate and environment issues not just for their own benefit, but to maintain support for the policies and funding allocated to deal with these issues.

And if anyone needs to be aware, it is the youth of today, who will be most affected by the climate change of tomorrow.

That is one of the reasons I am particularly pleased to see representatives of International Polar Year national Youth Committees here today. This symposium will give young scientists an overview of European Research in the Polar Regions.

I hope that you can spread the word to other young scientists about the importance of polar research, which is one of the main objectives of the International Polar Year. And I am aware that we can learn from you too.

Communicating science is not just a possibility - it’s a necessity. A good example of this is the DAMOCLES mobile exhibition, which will be launched this evening. It will help people understand what the DAMOCLES project does. I recommend a visit.

DAMOCLES is largest ongoing EU-funded polar research project. Its name stands for ‘Developing Arctic Modelling and Observing Capabilities for Long term Environmental Studies’. The Commission has contributed 16 million Euro to this project, which will look into the interaction of ice, the atmosphere and the oceans.

DAMOCLES is an excellent example of how EU Research and Development Framework programmes support climate research. But this is not new.

Today the European Commission is publishing a report entitled “European research on Polar environment and climate – Results and information from FP5 and FP6 projects”. The report highlights nearly 60 projects directly or indirectly related to polar issues that we have financed over the last 10 years.

Most have covered climate, but some have focused on environment and health, natural resources, research infrastructures and coordination activities. And the research results have made important contributions – for example to the IPCC report.

One of the results came from the EPICA project. It produced the longest atmospheric carbon dioxide record. This shows that we haven’t experienced such high CO2 levels for the last 650,000 years.

Not many people know that these findings are included in Al Gore’s film ‘An inconvenient truth’, which won Oscar for best documentary feature.

In a way this is a good example of how climate research needs to be an international effort. DAMOCLES, for example, is an EU-funded project involving 48 different institutions from 12 European countries, as well as Russian federation partners and cooperation with the USA and Canada.

International cooperation is fundamental in polar research. Not just for the usual reasons of joining together the best brains from all over the world and the added networking.

Polar research also needs to be international because it is so expensive. As the Polar Regions are so isolated and unwelcoming, research there can be among the most expensive in the world.

But perhaps the most important reason for an international approach to polar research is that it is an international issue. Nobody will escape the effects – either direct or indirect – of global warming.

Today’s interdisciplinary Symposium, organised by DG Research, is an excellent example of this international approach. We have 160 participants from 21 different countries. We have high quality speakers covering a wide range of specialities - and seven of them are lead authors of the IPCC reports.

Over today and tomorrow, we can look forward to hearing the latest information on climate change, health, infrastructures, natural and socio-economic impacts and public awareness of the Polar Regions.

We can also look forward to some frank discussions at the round table event. We need this debate. Not just to identify the research fields of the future for the Polar Regions: but also to feed into shaping future policy.

In the EU, we rely on sound scientific advice when formulating our policies on areas such as research, energy and the environment. This was the case with the Commission’s Communication on climate change released in January, which aims to see temperature rises limited to less than 2 degrees beyond pre-industrial levels.

I believe today’s symposium is one of the steps that we need to take along the road to finding more and better answers to the situation we have created.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Having today’s event in Brussels is timely because, with the launch of the International Polar Year and the EU’s new Research and Development Framework Programme, we have the opportunity to show that climate research can make a difference – and soon.

So I thank you for being here and I wish you all a successful symposium.

Thank you.

From a European Union press release, 3/5/07.



Contributed by ADP / SB on 03/07/2007
In the News • Research • Sustainable Communities • Permalink • Printer Friendly