Ancient treasures threatened by climate change

Archaeological treasures that have been frozen for millennia are being destroyed because of climate change, according to Edinburgh researchers.

Remains in some of the coldest places on earth are being exposed as warmer temperatures cause ice and hardened ground to thaw.

Edinburgh University experts said the materials at risk included ancient tombs, artefacts and human remains.

They are often culturally significant, especially for indigenous populations.
Scientists at the university's business school studied cases of damaged remains in three locations around the world, at permafrost in the Altai Mountains in central Asia, sea ice in Alaska and glaciers in the Rocky Mountains.

They found coastal erosion caused by retreating sea ice was damaging remains in an Inuit village in Alaska, including a Fourth-Century coastal cemetery.

"Warming climates are expected to lead to more melting ice, and we need to take action to safeguard ancient treasures”

Dr Dave Reay
Edinburgh University

Their study suggested melting glaciers in the Rocky Mountains posed a threat to Native American human remains and artefacts such as hunting tools, weapons and clothing.

Researchers also discovered that thawing temperatures represented a risk to burial mounds in the Altai Mountains of central Asia.

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Benefit to cutting 'black carbon'

Cutting atmospheric soot, methane and ground-level ozone is the quickest way to tackle climate change in the short term, according to a new report.

The governing council of the UN Environment Programme (Unep) in Nairobi will hear that reducing these short-lived emissions could reduce warming by half a degree.

And it would be more easily achieved than reducing emissions of the gas principally implicated in long-term climate change, CO2.

It would also have spin-off benefits because soot and ground-level ozone harm human health - and ozone damages crops.

Loss adjustment

The assessment comes from Unep and World Meteorological Organization, in collaboration with a global team of scientists.

Its authors insist that nations must continue to strive to reduce CO2 emissions, which will continue to warm the atmosphere for more than 100 years from the time they are produced.

But it says that using existing technologies and institutions to cut ozone and black carbon (soot) can halve regional warming for 30 to 60 years whilst averting millions of premature deaths and avoiding tens of billions of dollars of crop losses annually.

Black carbon comes from the incomplete combustion of fossil fuels, mostly through diesel engines and biomass burning - including in cook stoves and brick kilns.

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Green economies for growth

Investing $1.3 trillion (£800bn) each year in green sectors would deliver long-term stability in the global economy, a UN report has suggested.

Spending about 2% of global GDP in 10 key areas would kick-start a "low carbon, resource efficient green economy", the authors observed.

They also recommended following policies that decoupled economic growth from intensive consumption.

The findings have been published at a meeting attended by 100 ministers.

"Governments have a central role in changing laws and policies, and in investing public money in public wealth to make the transition possible," said Pavan Sukhdev, head of the UN Environment Programme's (Unep) Green Economy Initiative.

"Misallocation of capital is at the centre of the world's current dilemmas and there are fast actions that can be taken, starting literally today," he added.

"From phasing down and phasing out the $600bn global fossil fuel subsidies, to re-directing more than $20bn subsidies perversely rewarding those in unsustainable fisheries."

Unep defined a "green economy" as one that resulted in "improved human well-being and social equity, while significantly reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities".

When it came to investing 2% of GDP in greening the global economy, the authors recommended a number of investments, including:

• $108bn greening agriculture, such as encouraging and supporting smallholder farms
• $134bn on the building sector, including improving energy efficiency
• $110bn improving fisheries, including reducing the capacity of the world's fishing fleet
• $15bn on forestry, with "important knock-on benefits for combating climate change"
• Almost of $110bn on both water and waste, including sanitation and recycling

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Climate change: Contrary motion? BBC News Earth Watch

One issue, two reports, two different conclusions.

In short, a recipe for confusion - at least, on the surface.

Last week the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), the London-based think-tank, published a report suggesting that fears of mass migration caused by climate change were misplaced.

A few days later, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) trailed its forthcoming report with a release recommending that:

"Governments in Asia and the Pacific need to prepare for a large increase in climate-induced migration in the coming years..."

At face value, then, the starkest of contradictions: and an important one, because if millions of people (perhaps a billion, according to a 2007 report from Christian Aid [pdf link]) are forced away from their homes, that's a huge issue for governments and international agencies to deal with.
If they're not, the money and resources that might have been mis-directed at this issue can be re-directed at others.

So why the confused picture? Is it really a confusion of conclusions - or of terminologies?

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