Op-Ed Contributors

Take climate warnings seriously

By Fu Jing (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-08-02 08:08

Negotiators at Bonn must analyze and act to mitigate damage caused to developing nations by extreme weather patterns

Before negotiators at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bonn start to discuss or disagree over actions to mitigate the impact of extreme weather patterns globally, they must listen carefully to people - such as my mother - who have been directly affected by it.

Last Wednesday, my mother, who lives in my home province of Sichuan, called to say: "Flash floods some nights ago really frightened us, and our old house (at the foothills of a mountain) has been partially destroyed once again."

To my mind, the key words were "once again", reminding me of that summer three years back when our ancestral home was deluged after a rainstorm roared through the province's Tongjiang county, where my parents used to live.

Hundreds of fellow villagers then were rendered homeless after river levels rose rapidly and landslides occurred in quick succession.

Dozens perished in the flash floods and subsequent landslips this summer.

Many of the villagers had barely stepped over the poverty line at that time. The disasters, which some scientists are linking to excessive greenhouse gas emissions, sucked them right back into poverty again.

The story has been no different this summer as floods have ravaged many regions in China, South Asia and South America.

These Chinese villagers have very limited carbon footprint; even a visit to the provincial capital of Chengdu is a rare occurrence. In fact, they have contributed much to reducing CO2 emissions by way of planting more trees on the mountainsides. Yet, they are the hardest hit by disasters resulting from climate change.

Days before the Bonn conference, some 300 scientists from the US, Australia, UK and Canada pulled together data related to 10 climate change indicators, measured by 160 research groups in 48 countries.

They then concluded that the years 2000 to 2009 were the warmest ever, and that the Earth has been getting warmer for the last 50 years.

Each of the past three decades has been the hottest on record, they pointed out.

This year is shaping up to be even warmer, with the combined land and oceanic temperatures recorded in the first six months of 2010 being the hottest ever, the scientists said.

Europe, after experiencing some warmer than usual days in July, is now enjoying some cool weather. The climate change negotiators must bear in mind that the phenomenon may have global impact, but it is the poor who bear the brunt of it.