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Sea levels to surge 'at least a metre' by century end
(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-03-11 09:07

"We need to look at what is a 'reasonable worst case' in the lifetime of people alive today," said John Ashton, Britain's top climate negotiator, noting even rich nations had yet to take such scenarios seriously.

"A sea level rise of one or two meters would not just be damaging for China, it would be an absolute catastrophe. And what is catastrophic for China is catastrophic for the world," he said.

Up to 600 million people living close to coast lines in poor and rich countries alike could be affected, said Konrad Steffen, head of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences in Boulder, Colorado.

"They will have to move -- it would change the whole structure of populations, and we know how badly we deal with migration," he said.

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Among the worst hit countries will be Bangladesh, which would lose some 17 percent of its landmass, displacing nearly 15 million people.

"These startling new predictions on sea levels rise spell disaster for millions of the world's poorest people," said Rob Bailey of Oxfam. "This must be a wakeup call for rich countries are not doing anywhere near enough to prevent these cataclysmic predictions becoming a reality."

More than 2,000 researchers from 80 countries responded to the open invitation to present their findings, which were then vetted by a panel of climate experts, many of them top figures in the IPCC.

"I and a lot of scientists see this meeting as an opportunity to update the science that has come out since the last IPCC report," said William Howard, a researcher from the University of Tasmania in Hobart, Australia.

"The huge response from scientists comes from a sense of urgency, but also a sense of frustration," said Katherine Richardson, head of the Danish government's Commission on Climate Change Policy.

Richardson said the 2007 IPCC report, called the Fourth Assessment Report, was an invaluable document but it would be years out of date when negotiators convene in Copenhagen in December to hammer out a global climate treaty.

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