Greenhouse 'could spark major wars'

April 24, 2008, London CLIMATE change could cause global conflicts as large as the two world
wars but lasting for centuries unless the problem is controlled, a
British defence think tank has warned.

The Royal United Services Institute said a tenfold increase in research
spending, comparable to the $US20 billion a year (at 2002 prices) spent
on the Apollo space program, was needed to avoid the worst effects of
changing temperatures.

The group said the world's response to threats posed by climate change
had so far been "slow and inadequate" because nations had failed to
prepare for the worst-case scenario.

"We're preparing for a car bomb, not for 9/11," said Nick Mabey, author
of the institute's report on climate change.

Mr Mabey - a former senior member of the British Prime Minister's
strategy unit and chief executive of the environmental group E3G said
the scaling-up of research and development needed to be undertaken by
every major country to prepare for the eventuality that the climate
would reach a "tipping point" where accelerating warming and sea level
rises drove migration and other problems.

If climate change turned out to be more benign, the research would not
be wasted as technological advances in nuclear power, biofuels, carbon
capture and storage and renewables were urgently needed anyway, he said.

"Climate impacts will force us into a radical rethink of how we identify
and secure our national interests," the report said. "For example, our
energy and climate security will increasingly depend on stronger
alliances with other large energy consumers, such as China, to develop
and deploy new energy technologies, and less on relations with
oil-producing states."

* Greece has been suspended from UN carbon trading for failing to
maintain a proper national system for recording greenhouse gas emissions
- the first such ruling since the Kyoto Protocol came into force in
2005.

Legal experts enforcing compliance with the protocol also said they were
opening proceedings against Canada for alleged violations of greenhouse
gas reporting rules.

Original Source: Charles Clover TELEGRAPH, REUTERS via The Age Melbourne