“The link between man-made warming and hurricane activity is unclear” – ICSC
Oladunjoye Opeyemi
In a response to an article posted by NigerianEcho on Tuesday, describing how Phillipine envoy to the UN Climate talks, Naderev ‘Yeb’ Sano gave an emotional speech urging Delegates and developing countries to help fight against Global warming, so as to avoid many more disasters like Typhoon Haiyan; The Executive Director of International Climate Science Coalition (ICSC), Tom Harris has said “the link between man-made warming and hurricane activity is unclear.”
He made known his stand that Climate Change is not the cause of these disasters. In a letter written to the Editor in Chief of NigerianEcho, Harris maintained that there is no clear cut link between the cyclones and global warming.
“The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change * said in 2012 that a relationship between global warming and hurricanes has not been demonstrated. In their September 2013 assessment report, they had only “low confidence” that damaging increases will occur in tropical cyclones (typhoons and hurricanes) due to global warming.
“The Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change** report, also released in September, asserted “in no case has a convincing relationship been established between warming over the past 100 years and increases in any of these extreme events”, Harris said.
He described the typhoon as tragic but also noted that in recent periods, we are near a 30 year low in worldwide Accumulated Cyclone Energy, which is a measure of total cyclone activity.
He maintains that rather than blaming Climate change for the ills of nature, countries should concentrate more on building stronger and safer infrastructure to resist these disasters when they happen.
“Tropical cyclones will happen occasionally no matter what we do. So, instead of wasting money trying to stop them, we must adapt to them by burying electrical cables underground and reinforcing buildings and other infrastructure. Thousands of people died in the Philippines because their storm shelters collapsed. A similar typhoon hit Queensland, Australia in 2011 and not a single person died because their shelters were much stronger.
“At the UN climate conference now underway, adaptation takes a distant second place to trying to stop what might happen decades from now. Of the ~$1 billion/day ** spent on climate finance across the world, only 6% of it goes to adaptation, effectively assigning more value to the lives of people yet to be born than those suffering today. Our representatives should tell conference delegates that this approach is immoral and must be changed”, he concluded.