Climate change has already brought many animal and plant species at the very brink of extinction while other plants and animals are shrinking in size because of warmer temperatures.
Jennifer Sheridan and David Bickford at the National University of Singapore have studied climate-change episodes in the distant past as well as experiments and observations in recent history. Their conclusion was that climate change has already begun to shrink dozens of animal and plants species with many more likely to follow.
Fossil records from the past clearly show that past periods of rising temperatures had led both marine and land organisms to gradually shrink in size. During a warming event 55 million years ago many species such as beetles, bees, spiders, wasps and ants shrank by 50 to 75 percent in size over a period of several thousand years.
The most worrying fact is that the current warming trend is lot faster than the one of 55 million years ago. In the worst possible scenario if food crops and animals continue to shrink this will in years to come lead to severe food shortages and more hunger in the world.
The scientists have calculated that the each degree of warming reduces by 0.5 to 4 percent the body size of marine invertebrates and 6 to 22 percent of fish. Not only that, frequent droughts also lead to smaller offspring.
The additional problem in the whole climate change story is the fact that our planet is warming really fast which doesn't leave much room for plants and animals to adapt quickly enough.
EU's main climate goal is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20% by 2020. After a 7% drop in greenhouse gas emissions in 2009 many thought that EU will achieve this goal with relative ease. But 2009 was anything but a representative year in terms of emission cuts because of global recession.
According to the latest data European greenhouse gas emissions rose by 2.4% in 2010 boosted by an economic recovery and the increased use of heating fuels due to a very cold winter.
The European Environment Agency (EEA) said that this increase in emissions in 2010 does not mean that EU is no longer at the right track to achieve its climate target. What this really means is that the existing measures are not enough and that some EU countries will have to put lot more efforts in order to cut their greenhouse gas emissions.
For instance, EU countries like Austria, Italy and Luxembourg will fail to achieve their Kyoto targets which will have negative effect on collective EU climate target.
One thing is sure, namely that EU will need different policies that would ensure further cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. These policies will have to put lot more emphasis to renewable energy, energy efficiency and pollution reduction.
Jacqueline McGlade, EEA executive director said that "we (EU) can reduce emissions further if we consider the climate impacts of various policies more systematically."
Some policies are more efficient than others, some give better short-term some better long-term results, some can be applied only in certain EU countries while others can be used everywhere. EU must be aware of all these details if it wants to successfully reduce greenhouse gas emissions and help tackle climate change on global level.
Climate change has already brought many animal and plant species at the very brink of extinction while other plants and animals are shrinking in size because of warmer temperatures.