G7 Finance Ministers Can’t Afford to Ignore Climate at Arctic Meeting: WWF

WWF
“It is fitting that the first meeting of the G7 Finance Ministers after Copenhagen is taking place in the Arctic, where global warming has gone fastest and furthest,” said Keith Stewart, climate change program director for WWF-Canada. “We must see greater leadership from this group to help green the global economy in order to prevent dangerous levels of global warming.”
 
In Copenhagen, world leaders pledged to do what it takes to keep average global warming below the danger threshold of two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Yet the national pledges on climate action that were filed with the UN earlier this week as part of the Copenhagen Accord would lead to a rise in temperature of more than three degrees globally, and likely seven degrees or more in the Arctic.
 
The Arctic has warmed at about twice the rate of the rest of the globe and will continue to amplify. Current levels of warming are already destabilising important arctic systems including sea ice, the Greenland Ice Sheet, mountain glaciers, and aspects of the arctic carbon cycle including increasing greenhouse gas releases from soils, lakes, and wetlands. A frozen Arctic acts as the Northern Hemisphere’s refrigerator and plays a central role in regulating Earth’s climate system.
 
Rapid warming in the order of seven degrees this century would devastate the Arctic’s ecosystems, biodiversity and traditional way of life. These impacts would extend far beyond the Arctic itself, triggering climate feedback effects that could destabilize the global economy.
 
“The Finance Ministers can’t ignore the fact that there is no stable economy on a planet where the climate is being destabilized,” says Stewart. “The ministers need to include financing of the transition to a low-carbon economy in their recovery strategy.”
 
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For more information:
 
Keith Stewart, Climate Change Program Director, WWF-Canada, 416-985-5936 (cell in Iqaluit); [email protected]