Transcripts For ALJAZAM Inside Story 20140407 : vimarsana.co

Rising seas, changing patterns of rain and snow are already being felt in the daily lives of people around the world. But the forces bringing these changes are front loaded. Theyre already in the atmosphere, and more people are talking not about how to stop it from happening, but what to do in the face of forces that will change daily life for hundreds of millions of people. Here in the United States and around the world. No country on earth can hide from the effects of Climate Change. Every continent is touched by Global Warming in some way. People and governments must prepared for huge changes. The one message that comes out very clearly is that the world has to adopt and the world has to mitigate. And the sooner we do that, the less the chances of some other worst impacts of Climate Change being faced in different parts of the world. The planets warm something believed to be increasing deadly floods making long, hotter, killer heat waves and fueling destructive wildfires. It does not happen in some remote country or far away island. Climate change effects everyone on earth. Warning of big problems to come such as damaged and low prop yields. Wildlife migration towards the poles and increasing supplies of fresh water. The first report concluded that humans were the dominant cause of Climate Change. The second report with all the evidence of changing planet the world is i will prepared for the perils to come and spells out the potential changes to daily life if there is no international response. This weeks response is like previous icpp players controversial. Some scientists criticize the work as alarmist saying that it is not objective. Critics say that this report magnifies the threat and ignores the benefits of Climate Change. But there is agreement, a warming planet makes seas rise, and the potential for more dangerous storms. Hurricane sandy is an example of what can happen when unprepared. 72 people died in eight states. According to the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration its the second costliest hurricane in u. S. History. The price tag, 65 billion. 65,000 homes were destroyed or damaged. Sandy hit new york and new jersey the hardest. Power outages lasted weeks. The storm even shut down the New York Stock Exchange for two days. The impact is still felt today. The human crisis of sandy is deep, it is lasting and it will continue, and we will stand by the people affected until every is back on their feet. Reporter the question is what can new york, new jersey, or other states and cities do to prepare for the next sandy . Where would the money come from . Where would you spend it if you had it. The ipcc reports said many governments are failing to protect their citizens from the threat of Global Warming. Not only are nations doing too little too slowly but theyre not adopting. There is a reason for the world not really neglecting the findings of this report because they are profound and let me repeat once again we have said categorically in this report the implications for yo human security. We have reasons to believe that if the world doesnt do anything about mitigating the emission of greenhouse gasses and the extent of Climate Change continues to increase, then the very source and stability of Human Systems could be at stake. The poorest nations are the most vulnerable. When the typhoon hit the philippines in november it killed 6,000 people and left millions homeless. Reconstruction costs are in the billions. Poor countries need as much as 100 billion a year to offset the effects of Global Warming. Where help like that might come from is hard to fathom, and the question is repeat ed for the Global Economy to reach an action plan. Joining us now to discuss the latest report of the inter governmental planet on Climate Change is one of the reports lead authors. From new york, Michael Oppenheimer , is it fair professor to say that there was slight change of tone. Instead of talking about years to come there was discussion about what is visible now . Thats correct. Because although previously the Climate Changes themselves like heat waves or intense precipitation were obviously detected by scientists. The impacts were not. Number one, crop yields, the growth in crop yields are slowing in some places due to Climate Change. This is extremely important because crops have extended per decade but now it will slow in the future and that bears implications because population is growing, and in addition to eating habits are changing. Dietary habits using more grain per person. The other notable detection its possible to say that more people are dying from excess heat in Climate Change than are surviving due to reduced threat of getting sick and dieing in winter. On the whole hot weather is bad for you, and we see that threat coming on and being detect heat waves, excess hot weather are expected to increase in the future, and thats a real threat particularly in cities that have their own urban heat island affect and air pollution. This report was not just not a clarion call about the future, but its about things changing now. Were the things that were speculated about in earlier reports on findings that now with the added data you cite youre able to fill in the picture and find out whether your predictions are actually sound and conversely are there things that maybe you got wrong when you looked into the 20teens and earlieren. The two things i cited about declines in crop yields and deaths due to extreme heat were certainly speculated, more than speculated but expected from earlier reports. But now there is a solid basis there are enough studies to be able to say yes, weve detected this effective Climate Change. In addition quite interestingly a couple of earths broad ecosystems which support many people and globally distributed globally in the tropics and support the economies of island states through fisheries and also through tourist income, and the arctic is opening due to melting sea ice, those some to be at the early signs of tipping points. Where a small additional change could send them over the edge and lead them to leave the system fragmenting so in the tropics many of the coral reefs would be expected to die and disintegrate when the water warms moving up to 3 or 4 degrees fahrenheit. That will be devastating to the economies of those islands and taking away a major amenity from people from the north traveling on vacations. There is a lot in this report which was expected but which could never have been proven. Now its been proven. Is there more of an emphasis this time around on what the world should be doing short term to make systems more resilient to these changes in the weather . Yes, definitely. Let me take the long term first. There is only one solution to this problem, that is to cut substantially the emissions of Carbon Dioxide and other Greenhouse Gases from coal burning and natural gas that are causing the problem in the first place. But oddly we are committed to as you said in the setup piece to several decades of climate warming because of the inertia i of the earth and the gasses in the atmosphere. Its beyond the 2035 or 2040 that Emission Reductions are necessary and have a major benefit. In the near term period we have tto adapt. If you look at just a rich city, new york, a city whose mayor bloomberg had planned and thought about and talked a lot about Climate Change, when that Hurricane Sandy came along, although we had done some things we had done about 10 of what we should have done including, interestingly, we had knocked on tomorrow of the cheap and easy things. Protected the subway similar, protected lives and Electrical Systems and today if we dont argue about it costing gazillion dollars but start to do the things to protect ourselves from what is happening, putting aside Global Warming, we would be ahead. Professor of geoscience and one of the lead report from the icpp. Good to talk to you again. Good to see you, ray. Stay with us. When we return well meet with panelists who are wrestling with welcome back to inside story. Were discussing Climate Change. The reports say its di textible and threatening the lives of millions of people economically and physically. Joining me now executive director of new jersey future, a group working on Sustainable Development in the state. In our washington studio, sherry good man, Senior Vice President of Cna Corporation an independent Research Firm and from new york, bor jn, let met starred with you. Does it sound like the icpp is coming down to a view of the world that we have to get ready for what is happening now . No, i think oppenheimer pointed it out very well. When Hurricane Sandy hit we had a mayor that had talked a lot about Climate Change and talking about carbon emissions. Get more wetlands, protective barriers, simple things that will happen, and help with all the hurricanes that have happened here that have nothing to do with Global Warming. Smart things to do , adaptation and we should not let long term globalization get in the way of that there are unique places, tightly vulnerable to weird storms like Hurricane Sandy, it takes out private homes and causes real commotion and problems, but not the kind of figures that we saw of dollar valleys for damage. Do we need to get used to a new world and newca new calculous. This was an unusual storm, and we have to remember it happened before. It happened in 1938. Its something that we need to be prepared for. But yes, most of the damage is still going to happen in the atlantic and caribbean parts of the u. S. When you look globally most of the Impact Damage is going to happen when it hits poor countries. One of the important points there oh realize if it hits rich countries who have better infrastructure, theyre better able to hand it. When it hit guatemala, a lot of people die and it wipes out their gdp. Being able to handle, for instance, the impacts of hurricanes, to make sure that theyre no longer poor. Peter, are politicians in a tough spot, urging the public to plan for catastrophic events. If they dont happen take them to task for spending public money to harden the target . I hope not. What were experiencing is that thats part of governments job to look to the future, to understand the risks that our population and our businesses are going to be facing, and to make those tough decisions. Were not asking for billions of dollars tomorrow to go into extreme resiliency measures. We first like money to be spent to better understand these vulnerabilities in these high hazard areas, and make improv improvements so that people are safer, so theyre out of harms way. Thats the governments responsibility. Do the unknowns make it harder to know what to do next. Take for example, Atlantic City where theyve spent millions and millions of dollars over the years because the proximat proxf the atlantic ocean. Now its as much a problem and threat as an amenity. Absolutely, and its very easy to look at that in the short term. What we need to do is look out into the future and say there are places along the coast that will be underwater in our lifetime. It doesnt make sense to immediately change but it does make sense for us to understand those threats, understand those risks and incrementally over the next several decades begin to make a change. Begin to make a difference. To me its irresponsible to do the opposite. We have billions of dollars coming from federal taxpayers coming into new jersey and new york to rebuild in places that are going to be underwater within four or five decades. That to me is not smart. Does that mean that some future governor of new jersey is going to have to tell people because of the peculiar geography that theyre not going to be able to rebuild and no one is going to resubsidize that rebuilding . We dont think the governor needs to be in that position. By engaging coastal communities with real information and education and an understanding that these risks are real, but no one is expecting you to deal with them on your own or to deal with them tomorrow. Its a process of dealing with them over time. The federal Flood Insurance is a good example to your point. We also dont believe we should be subsidizing people to be in high risk areas. Sherry goodman, weve become very accustomed to talking about the kind of events that accompany Climate Change in the way that ive just been talking about the. As a fear to capitol, crops, human health, but the security dimension is one that were not as used to talking about, and it was featured in this latest icpp report, good timing . Yes, its never too late to dress this threat, and since 2007 the military Advisory Board has identified Climate Change as a threat multiplier for instability. The secretary of defense and, indeed, the entire administration now recognizes that as well. Secretary of defense today is in hawaii meeting with asian defense ministers among other things discussing the need to better prepare for Climate Risks faced in the asia pacific region. Yes, it is now a security challenge that we need to face. We need to prepare for, and we need to make ourselves more resilient to with stand in the future. Give us examples of places on the globe that may already be seen as political tension, conflict, where that conflict is made worse by the environment. We see that in pakistan where the floods of several years ago put people at risk, cost many lives in an area that is already turbulent, where there is Political Risk and Nuclear Weapons and already instability. We see changes in the arctic happening dramatically from the melting of the ice, and a whole new region opening up to traffic and human activity bringing with it risks in the future. We see it across the asia pacific where there is increased risk of storm surge and extreme event and whole small island nations may be lost as the sea level rises. Were going to take a short break. When we come back well talk about adaptation, what its going to ask for, and from who. Aljazeera america presents a break through Television Event borderland. Six strangers. Lets just send them back to mexico experience illegal immigration up close and personal. Its overwhelming to see this many people that have perished. Lost lives are relived. All of these people shouldnt be dead. Will there differences bring them together, or tear them apart. The only way to find out is to see it yourselves. Which side of the fence are you on . Borderland only on Al Jazeera America welcome back to inside story. Im ray suarez. Observed impacts from Climate Change is , on this edition of our program were discussing the latest report from the United Nations called Climate Change change 2014 impacts, ataptations and vo vulnerability. Defining a whole new financial infrastructure for helping people cope from moving from one place to another. I think its a very good point. Our first thing that we have to do and in new jersey were not doing a very good job of it is really understanding the risks. Spending the time and money to develop the tools to understand how vulnerable are these areas, when will they be underwater, and what can communities do about that . Were not helping communities plan for what they should do. And part of that planning is making sure that we have equity so that lower income communities are treated just as well as wealthy communities. That gets to the financial tools that youre talking about. If, in fact, the right answer is to start retreat in areas or start to redevelop in different areas we need different financial tools and mechanisms to help these communities adapt and adjust. The last point is many of the towns and this goes worldwide, many of the towns feeling these impacts are small. They dont have the admi administrative or government guidance to have the capacity to plan and implement those plans and finance the improvements necessary. As we scale up from new jersey to the planet, in Climate Change summits, when it comes time to make that tough deal, to help cushion the blow in poorest places, thats where everything breaks down. Its only one of the places. Partly weve been talking about spending 100 billion to help developing countries deal with Global Warming. When were talking about mitigating and cutting back, thats a huge outlay. Thats what is really controversial. If we go back to the 100 billion and talking about having to spend to tackle Global Warming the issue we also need to remember is yes, there are lots of problems we need to address with money, but most developing countries have lots and lots of other issues as well. Their kids from ease liqueurible diseases, they dont have access to food or education, should we spend 100 billion first on fort flying structures so theyre better able to handle hurricanes or just make sure that people stop dying from easily curable infectious diseases. Thats something that we need to address and thats not just about climate. It sounds like this is all forcing a new way to look at the answer of the question of what is security and what is a safe place to live on the planet. Yes, indeed. The socalled nonsecurity threats are becoming the mai man street way. We see across the planet in places like the middle east where tensions have sparked in recent years that one of the explanations may be that food has been become less available as a result of drought and other places, and thats added to tension. When people dont have adequate food and water that leads to social tension as well in already a place where you have an incubator for potential conflict. So do they planned with the 82nd airborne. Thats one of the worst ways to overcome it later on which is some of it happened as we tried to stabilize the situation in afghanistan in the last decade. But to think about what the challenges are and decide these issues are before, becoming resilient on your own. Thats why the secretary of defense in hawaii to talk now in advance of conflict to do disaster risk production and to do prepareness for the future. Help our own forces be more ready to respond in the future, but to partner with other allies to that we can all be more ready. Are you optimistic that weve really god the wherewithal to pull this off, to get agreements where theyve been so hard to get in the past . Were not going to get comprehensive on Global Warming, in the second half of the century well be four, five times richer in total. Yes this is a problem over all we will manage pretty well but this is something that we need to tackle. Thank you all for being with us today. And that brings us to the end of this edition of inside story. Thanks for being with us. In washington, im ray suarez. Welcome to Al Jazeera America. Im del walters in new york. Were following a story very close to our organize. A global call to free our completion who are now jailed in egypt. Today is day 100. 100 days now that our three al jazeera Staff Members have been in prison in egypt. Tr