Report: Global warming a threat to sensitive ecosystems

August 30, 2000
Web posted at: 12:28 PM EDT (1628 GMT)

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (Reuters) -- The Earth's climate is warming so rapidly that many species of wildlife and plants cannot survive the rising mercury and will be wiped out, an environmental report warned on Wednesday.

Species loss could be as high as 20 percent in sensitive ecosystems such as northern Canada, the Tibetan Plateau and in southeastern Australia, according to the report released by the World Wildlife Fund and Canada's David Suzuki Foundation.

The report warned that 35 percent of the Earth's existing natural habitat could be "fundamentally altered" in the next 100 years, with up to 60 percent destruction in the boreal and Arctic regions of Canada.

Animals and plants face the same choice as at the end of the last Ice Age -- migrate or die -- but many will not be able to survive because the rate of warming is much faster, according to the report.

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"More and more, plants and animals will have to permanently migrate to find suitable habitat and some will not be able to move fast enough," said Jay Malcolm, an assistant professor of forestry in Toronto and one of the report's authors.

Some plants needing colder climates will have to migrate 100 times faster than when the Ice Age ended.

"Very few plant species can move at rates faster than 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) per year, and yet this is what will be required in many parts of the world," the report's authors wrote.

Scientists generally agree the Earth has been warming slowly for the last 100 years, but there is disagreement on the cause and whether it represents a long-term trend.

The environmental groups who helped release the report at a news conferences in Toronto and London said it was more evidence of the need to curb the production of greenhouse gasses that they blame for causing the climate to warm.

"The pace of warming could be much greater than even 13,000 years ago when sabre-toothed tigers and woolly mammoth still roamed the Earth. We can't simply continue to sit by and accept this devastating loss," noted University of Toronto researcher and environmentalist Dr. David Suzuki said.

The report acknowledged that some more adaptable animals and plants will be able to extend their range with a warmer climate, but said many are "nuisance" species such as kudzu vines and Japanese honeysuckle.

Representatives of 180 countries will meet in Lyons, France, next month to work out how the Kyoto Protocol international agreement to curb greenhouse gas emissions will be made to work.

The 1997 treaty will also be the subject of international ministerial talks in The Hague in November.

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