Climate change problem to grow worse, U.N. says

Climate change issues are affecting the world’s oceans and every continent and will grow worse, a United Nations committee said Monday in Yokohama, Japan.

A report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded ice caps are melting, Arctic ice is collapsing, water supplies will be strained, heat waves will intensify, coral reefs around the world are dying and certain animal species will go extinct. The situation will worsen unless greenhouse gases are brought under control, it said.

The IPCC report emphasized the world’s food supply is at risk, a threat that could seriously impact the world’s poorest nations, and noted climate change is not a problem for the future but that its effects are being felt now.

Organic matter frozen for millennia in Arctic soil is now melting, causing further emission of greenhouse gases, the report of several hundred authors said.

The report attempts to project how climate will affect human society in coming decades and was among the most sobering yet issued, the New York Times said Monday. The panel, with Al Gore, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for its efforts to clarify the risks of climate change.

“Nobody on this planet is going to be untouched by the impacts of climate change,” panel Chairman Rajendra Pachauri said Monday at a news conference unveiling the report.

[IPCC] [New York Times]