Effects of global warming accelerating

Scientists have warned that the impact of global warming is accelerating beyond a forecast made by UN experts two years ago.

Experts are meeting in Copenhagen this week in preparation for a global climate change summit there at the end of this year.

The meeting was told yesterday that sea levels this century may rise several times higher than predictions made in 2007.

In March 2007, the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded that global warming, if unchecked, would lead to a devastating amalgam of floods, drought, disease and extreme weather.

The world's oceans would rise between 18cm and 59cm, enough to wipe out several small island nations and wreak havoc for tens of millions living in low-lying deltas in east Asia.

A new study factors in likely water runoff from disintegrating glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica, and found the rise could be much higher.

In addition, a new report says world oceans are under threat from a rising tide of man-made rubbish, damaging wildlife, tourism and seafood industries and piling additional stress on seas already hit by climate change.

The report by US-based Ocean Conservancy detailed what it called a 'global snapshot of marine debris' based on itemised records of rubbish collected by nearly 400,000 volunteers in 104 countries and places in a single day in September 2008.

Read the report in full

Close to 3.2m kg of rubbish was collected from oceans, lakes, rivers and waterways in the 2008 clean-up.

Topping the list of the 11.4m items of trash collected were cigarette butts, plastic bags, and food wrappers and containers.

In the Philippines alone, 11,077 nappies were picked up, and 19,504 fishing nets were recovered in Britain.

In Brussels yesterday, more than 300 Greenpeace activists were arrested, and five slightly injured, after they briefly blocked the entrances to the main EU building.

Wearing yellow and blue ponchos and bearing banners saying 'Save the climate' and 'Bail out the planet', activists from 20 countries participated in the surprise demonstration seeking greater effort in fighting climate change.

The protest targeted the Justus Lipsius building in the heart of Brussels. Finance ministers were meeting at the time of the action.

In the US, the Environmental Protection Agency has proposed a comprehensive system for reporting emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

The new plan for a carbon registry would affect fossil fuel suppliers, car-makers and companies that emit at least 25,000 metric tons of greenhouse gases a year.