[Coral-List] Inadequate emissions pledges for Paris COP21

Sue Wells suewells1212 at gmail.com
Thu Oct 22 06:52:50 EDT 2015


To all Coral-listers

In relation to Peter Sale's plea about climate change, the International
Society for Reef Studies has just released a consensus statement (authored
by Ove Hoegh-Guldberg of the University of Queensland, with Mark Eakin,
Gregor Hodgon and Charlie Veron, and reviewed by a large team including
Peter) on the current scientific view of the impact of climate change on
coral reefs.  As Peter states, the conclusion of this group is that the
targets being proposed for Paris will NOT reduce greenhouse gas emission NOR
limit temperature rise to the degree required to prevent widespread coral
reef decline in the foreseeable future. The rapidly developing Global Coral
Bleaching Event, which threatens to be more serious than even the 1998
event, likely heralds further severe decline of coral reefs as a result of
climate change. 

We would like to distribute the ISRS statement as widely as possibly prior
to the Paris Climate Change conference at the end of November, in order to
provide the necessary scientific underpinning of the issue.  The statement
has gone out to the ISRS membership (some 1000 individuals) and is posted on
the ISRS website at
<http://coralreefs.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/ISRS-Consensus-Statement-o
n-Coral-Bleaching-Climate-Change-FINAL-14Oct2015-HR.pdf>
http://coralreefs.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/ISRS-Consensus-Statement-on
-Coral-Bleaching-Climate-Change-FINAL-14Oct2015-HR.pdf.  A French
translation is in preparation and we are looking at the possibilities of
preparing Spanish, Chinese and Arabic versions.  Hard copies of the English
version (and potentially the French version) are being printed to distribute
at the Paris conference.  

We would be very grateful if you and/or your institutions could assist with
dissemination of the message, using the statement itself, or via the text
and the statement's content.  Please contact me directly if you need any
further information.

 

Sue Wells

International Society for Reef Studies

e-mail: suewells1212 at gmail.com

 




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