Ireland second least vulnerable nation to climate change

[Pidge]

Interesting to have this kind of work done. I wonder which model they were working off, since they're regularly improved upon.

Anyway, the main affects that climate change will have on Ireland are economic. As a small, open economy, and an island nation, we are heavily tied to the world economy (for want of a less fluffy term). Ireland's interests are damaged seriously by climate change: even if the country was magically isolated from its direct effects, we would suffer serious harms from other countries' suffering.

Surely the most obvious implication is an influx of refugees?

That's true, but there's an obvious and unfortunate solution to that one.

[odie1kanobe]

Interesting to have this kind of work done. I wonder which model they were working off, since they're regularly improved upon.

Anyway, the main affects that climate change will have on Ireland are economic. As a small, open economy, and an island nation, we are heavily tied to the world economy (for want of a less fluffy term). Ireland's interests are damaged seriously by climate change: even if the country was magically isolated from its direct effects, we would suffer serious harms from other countries' suffering.

Surely the most obvious implication is an influx of refugees?

That's true, but there's an obvious and unfortunate solution to that one.

Send them to Africa as lots of land there.

[Fionn_McCool]

Cannot say. Global warming could stop the gulf stream. We would then have weather like New York (same latitute) ie losts of snow.

Errr...

New York's latitude is 40 degrees North (same as Oporto in Portugal) and Dublin is 53 degrees North, same as central Labrador and the south of Hudson Bay (frozen sea for 6 months of the year) !

So if the Gulf Stream packs up we can forget about the nice green fields and get used to tundra !

Good god I did not think it was that bad! New Murmansk anyone!!

Yea... I read somewhere that the west of Ireland has the warmest mean annual temperature in the world for our latitude of 51 to 55 degrees North, all because of the Gulf Stream and the North Atlantic Drift.

We are around the same latitude as the Kamchatka Peninsula, southern Alaska and Aleutian Islands on the Pacific, but they lack our warming current and thus are up to their goolies in snow for half the year.

.

[joel]

Cannot say. Global warming could stop the gulf stream. We would then have weather like New York (same latitute) ie losts of snow.

Errr...

New York's latitude is 40 degrees North (same as Oporto in Portugal) and Dublin is 53 degrees North, same as central Labrador and the south of Hudson Bay (frozen sea for 6 months of the year) !

So if the Gulf Stream packs up we can forget about the nice green fields and get used to tundra !

I think there is a prediction by the CIA that that will happen, in about 2020!

[Thranduil]

Cannot say. Global warming could stop the gulf stream. We would then have weather like New York (same latitute) ie losts of snow.

Errr...

New York's latitude is 40 degrees North (same as Oporto in Portugal) and Dublin is 53 degrees North, same as central Labrador and the south of Hudson Bay (frozen sea for 6 months of the year) !

So if the Gulf Stream packs up we can forget about the nice green fields and get used to tundra !

I think there is a prediction by the CIA that that will happen, in about 2020!

Very interesting points all, does Ireland's good ranking on this scale indicate that the powers that be believe the disruption of the Gulf Stream is extremely unlikely then?

[Trampas]

But what about that thundering gob************************e in the Irish Times , a blogger by the name of Gibbons, who today wrote ( I am not making this up) "We Irish love to fly". Indeed we do. It is so much easier than swimming. Here we are on a rock off western Europe and this f*cker wishes to shout the odds on how we might get off it once in a while. Time to face down these types; particularly those who are making money from that tripe.

[thebrom]

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/why-canada-is-the-best-haven-from-climate-change-860001.html

A group of islands with the potential to develop into a tourist paradise has been named as the country least equipped to withstand the effects of climate change.


The Comoros Islands in the Indian Ocean, between Mozambique and Madagascar, are a small nation of sparkling blue lagoons and picture-postcard beaches. But the country is politically unstable and a report published today says it is the world's most vulnerable country to the future impacts of global warming such as increased storms, rising sea levels and agricultural failure.

At the other end of the scale, Canada is the best place to move to if you want to be a climate change survivor in the decades ahead (although Britain is also a good place to be as a warming atmosphere takes hold).

The best-to-worst rankings are revealed in the first-ever climate change vulnerability index, produced by Maplecroft, a British consultancy which specialises in the mapping of risk. Its study, The Climate Change Risk Report, looks in great detail at global warming risks in 168 countries.

Africa is the most vulnerable region, and eight of the 10 most vulnerable countries are African, with the Comoros Islands followed by Somalia and Burundi in second and third places. Only five non-African countries are in the 20 most vulnerable. They are Yemen, Afghanistan, Haiti, Pakistan and Nepal.

As might be expected, developed nations score best. Canada is top, followed by Ireland, Norway, Denmark and Sweden. The UK is in 12th position, just behind the US. The surprise in the top 20 is Uruguay, which is listed ninth, and the only well-placed nation not to be in the club of countries which are rich, or Western (and usually both).

The originality of the new study is that it does not predict global warming's impacts, from increased droughts to rising sea levels, which has been done for the past two decades by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Instead, it looks at how countries are fitted to meet them. "We're not saying anything about the changing climate," said Andy Thow, one of the report's authors. "We're saying, what's the situation on the ground in terms of vulnerability? If there were an impact, how vulnerable would the country be?"

Vulnerability is examined by the study across six different sectors – the economy; natural resources and ecosystems; poverty, development and health; agriculture; population, settlement and infrastructure; and institutions, governance and social capital. Eventually a figure is arrived at on the scale of one to 10, with one being the most vulnerable, and 10 the most secure. The Comoros score is 1.21; Canada's score is 8.81. (Ireland scores 8.65)

"The simple reason that Comoros is most vulnerable overall is that it scores poorly across all parts of the index," Dr Thow said.

"The combination of all these factors is worse than for any other country. It scores particularly poorly in the agriculture and natural resources and ecosystems components.

This reflects a situation in which pressure on natural resources is extremely high and there is very limited capacity to adapt to the impacts of changes in climate. That capacity is limited by factors such as poor land quality, low crop production and yields and water stress, combined with a growing population.

"Canada, on the other hand, is extremely well equipped to adapt to changes in climate. It scores well across all aspects of the index. This is because of the low pressure on natural resources resulting from a low population density and large land area, combined with high agricultural capacity, a healthy economy, few development and health challenges and excellent public institutions."

But Dr Thow pointed out that while Maplecroft's work showed Canada was well placed to manage the impacts of climate change on people and society, its wildlife was likely to be seriously affected by the expected magnitude of changes to climate in the Arctic region.

The Comoros also scores lowest in the world (jointly with Chad) on the report's index of emissions of carbon dioxide, which means that the country likely to suffer most from global warming has done the least to cause it.

75% Proportion of the world's 20 most vulnerable nations to climate change that can be found in Africa

Interesting report, is Ireland facing a fairly stable future on the Climate Change front?

We are all vulnerable:

Report: Climate change linked to national security

By PAMELA HESS – Jun 25, 2008

WASHINGTON (AP) — Global warming is likely to increase illegal immigration, create humanitarian disasters and destabilize precarious governments and could add to terrorism, all of which could threaten U.S. national security, according to an assessment by U.S. intelligence agencies.

"Logic suggests the conditions exacerbated (by climate change) would increase the pool of potential recruits for terrorism," said Tom Fingar, deputy director of national intelligence for analysis, who testified before a joint House committee hearing Wednesday.

Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and Central and Southeast Asia are most vulnerable to warming-related drought, flooding, extreme weather and hunger. The intelligence assessment warns of a global spillover of those troubles: increased migration and water-related disputes, he said in prepared remarks.

Climate change alone would not topple governments, but it could worsen problems like poverty, disease, migration, and hunger that could destabilize already vulnerable areas, Fingar told the committee.

But he warned that efforts to reduce global warming by changing energy policies "may affect U.S. national security interests even more than the physical impacts of climate change itself," he stated.

"The operative word there is 'may,' we don't know," Fingar said.

The national intelligence assessment on the national security implications of global climate change through 2030 is one of a series of periodic intelligence reports that offer the consensus judgment of top analysts at all 16 U.S. spy agencies on major foreign policy, security and global economic issues. Congress requested the report last year. The assessment is classified "confidential."

It predicts that the United States and most of its allies will have the means to cope with climate change economically. Unspecified "regional partners" could face severe problems.

Fingar said that the quality of the analysis is hampered by the fact that climate data tend not to focus on specific countries but on broad global changes.

Africa is among the most vulnerable regions, the report states. An expected increase in droughts there could cut agricultural yields of rain-dependent crops by up to half in the next 12 years.

Parts of southern and eastern Asia's food crops are vulnerable both to droughts and floods, with rice and grain crops potentially facing up to a 10 percent decline by 2025.

As many as 50 million additional people could face hunger by 2020, and the water supply — while larger because of melting glaciers — will be stressed by growing population and consumption. Between 120 million and 1.2 billion people in Asia "will continue to experience some water stress."

Latin America may experience increased precipitation, possibly cutting tens of millions of people from the ranks of those in want of water. But from 7 million to 77 million could still be short water resources because of population growth.

Fingar's statement strikes a considerably less ominous tone than a report issued a year ago by the Center for Naval Analyses on the same subject.

Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., the chairman of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, accused the White House Tuesday night of trying to "bury the future security realities of global warming" in Fingar's prepared statement. On Wednesday he said the classified assessment itself is "first-class."

Fingar said no one in the White House changed any of his public testimony.

The Center for Naval Analyses report, written by top retired military leaders, drew a direct correlation between global warming and the conditions that lead to failed states becoming the breeding grounds for extremism and terrorism.

"Climate change will provide the conditions that will extend the war on terror," stated Adm. T. Joseph Lopez, who commanded U.S. and allied peacekeeping forces in Bosnia in 1996.

"Weakened and failing governments, with an already thin margin for survival, foster the conditions for internal conflicts, extremism and movement toward increased authoritarianism and radical ideologies," the previous report said. "The U.S. will be drawn more frequently into these situations," stated the report, which drew on 11 retired generals and admirals.

California Republican Rep. Darrell Issa said Congress' call for the intelligence agencies' report was "a dangerous diversion of intelligence assets." He said the issue should be studied by climate scientists, not intelligence agencies.

Republicans on the committee used the hearing to argue for domestic oil drilling and nuclear power to reduce reliance on foreign energy.

[Eddiepops]

[quote=Keith-M]

Climate change is a fake - go read the article in June's Prospect magazine

Burn the heretic! Burn the heretic![/quote:16ir1s19]
Ignore the idiot trolls! Ignore the idiot trolls!

[riven]

Very interesting points all, does Ireland's good ranking on this scale indicate that the powers that be believe the disruption of the Gulf Stream is extremely unlikely then?

It is interesting. the larger consequences for a lack of gluf stream