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CONFLICTS FUEL CAUCASUS CLIMATE FEARS
Truth Dig
June 26 2013
By Kieran Cooke, Climate News Network
This piece first appeared at Climate News Network.
ARMENIA-Mount Ararat, the 5,137-metre outcrop on which some believe
Noah and his Ark survived the great flood, is a symbol of identity to
many millions of Armenians. It has also become a symbol of conflict ?
and its warming climate is a likely harbinger of change to come in
the region.
The mountain is not in Armenia but in Turkey, its conical, snow-covered
peak visible across a closed and heavily-militarised border. But now
Ararat's snows ? seen all year round, even when summer temperatures
reach nearly 40C on the plains below - are melting.
A 2012 study by Turkish geologists, published in the Journal of
Asian Earth Sciences, found that Ararat's glaciers declined in size
by nearly 30% between 1976 and 2008. It concluded that a rise in
temperatures on the mountain, coupled with a fall in precipitation,
were the likely causes of the glacial reduction.
Further north, in the Caucasus mountains, there's a similar story. The
Earth Policy Institute calculates that glacial volume in the Caucasus
has decreased by 50% over the last century, with particularly sharp
declines in ice cover over the last 20 years. Across the region,
summer temperatures are increasing, while rainfall patterns are
becoming increasingly erratic.
However, regional rivalries and conflicts among the nations of the
Caucasus make any unified approach to addressing these problems
extremely difficult.
Landlocked Armenia, with a population of just over three million, has
no official relations either with Turkey, to the west, or Azerbaijan,
to the east. Georgia, with its population of four and half million,
recently went to war with its northern neighbour Russia over the
disputed territory of South Ossetia.
Diana Harutyunyan, one of Armenia's negotiators at UN climate meetings
and also a UN Development Programme climate change co-ordinator, says:
"Armenia and countries in this region, with their semi-arid climates
and fragile ecosystems, are extremely vulnerable to climate change.
"One of the key problems is that we don't have a common voice and
don't really make ourselves heard; we are not a grouping, but tend
to act individually.
"Not only are we seeing a clear downward trend in precipitation and
a rise in temperatures in many areas, but also there's increasing
desertification ? caused not just by changes in climate but by the
wholesale chopping down of trees.
"All of this has major economic implications, but, to be honest, this
region is not very active, and there is a serious lack of research and
data. For example, none of the countries in the region have statistics
on climate change and its impact on public health."
Little co-operation
When the Caucasus region formed part of the Soviet Union, climate
data collection was carried out on a region-wide basis; now it is
done by each individual country, with varying standards and little
cross-border co-operation.
The break-up of the USSR in the early 1990s had other consequences.
Much of the heavy industry in the Caucasus collapsed as state
subsidies were removed. As a result, emissions of greenhouse gases
fell dramatically, particularly in Georgia and Armenia, as shown
in a 2011 report by the Environment and Security Initiative, the UN
Environment Programme and others.
Land was removed from state control after the collapse of the USSR,
but experts say that agriculture in much of the region is now in
crisis as farmers struggle to cope without any state help. Recent
freak hail storms, which destroyed crops, mean that more people are
leaving the land to seek jobs in cities or abroad.
"Climate change is just one more problem that the mainly agricultural
economies in this region are facing," Harutyunyan says.
"We are going to have to adapt, but there is still a lot of
scepticism. Many say there are too many uncertainties. I tell them
that uncertainty cannot be an excuse for inaction."
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/conflicts_fuel_caucasus_climate_fears_20130626/
From: A. Papazian
Truth Dig
June 26 2013
By Kieran Cooke, Climate News Network
This piece first appeared at Climate News Network.
ARMENIA-Mount Ararat, the 5,137-metre outcrop on which some believe
Noah and his Ark survived the great flood, is a symbol of identity to
many millions of Armenians. It has also become a symbol of conflict ?
and its warming climate is a likely harbinger of change to come in
the region.
The mountain is not in Armenia but in Turkey, its conical, snow-covered
peak visible across a closed and heavily-militarised border. But now
Ararat's snows ? seen all year round, even when summer temperatures
reach nearly 40C on the plains below - are melting.
A 2012 study by Turkish geologists, published in the Journal of
Asian Earth Sciences, found that Ararat's glaciers declined in size
by nearly 30% between 1976 and 2008. It concluded that a rise in
temperatures on the mountain, coupled with a fall in precipitation,
were the likely causes of the glacial reduction.
Further north, in the Caucasus mountains, there's a similar story. The
Earth Policy Institute calculates that glacial volume in the Caucasus
has decreased by 50% over the last century, with particularly sharp
declines in ice cover over the last 20 years. Across the region,
summer temperatures are increasing, while rainfall patterns are
becoming increasingly erratic.
However, regional rivalries and conflicts among the nations of the
Caucasus make any unified approach to addressing these problems
extremely difficult.
Landlocked Armenia, with a population of just over three million, has
no official relations either with Turkey, to the west, or Azerbaijan,
to the east. Georgia, with its population of four and half million,
recently went to war with its northern neighbour Russia over the
disputed territory of South Ossetia.
Diana Harutyunyan, one of Armenia's negotiators at UN climate meetings
and also a UN Development Programme climate change co-ordinator, says:
"Armenia and countries in this region, with their semi-arid climates
and fragile ecosystems, are extremely vulnerable to climate change.
"One of the key problems is that we don't have a common voice and
don't really make ourselves heard; we are not a grouping, but tend
to act individually.
"Not only are we seeing a clear downward trend in precipitation and
a rise in temperatures in many areas, but also there's increasing
desertification ? caused not just by changes in climate but by the
wholesale chopping down of trees.
"All of this has major economic implications, but, to be honest, this
region is not very active, and there is a serious lack of research and
data. For example, none of the countries in the region have statistics
on climate change and its impact on public health."
Little co-operation
When the Caucasus region formed part of the Soviet Union, climate
data collection was carried out on a region-wide basis; now it is
done by each individual country, with varying standards and little
cross-border co-operation.
The break-up of the USSR in the early 1990s had other consequences.
Much of the heavy industry in the Caucasus collapsed as state
subsidies were removed. As a result, emissions of greenhouse gases
fell dramatically, particularly in Georgia and Armenia, as shown
in a 2011 report by the Environment and Security Initiative, the UN
Environment Programme and others.
Land was removed from state control after the collapse of the USSR,
but experts say that agriculture in much of the region is now in
crisis as farmers struggle to cope without any state help. Recent
freak hail storms, which destroyed crops, mean that more people are
leaving the land to seek jobs in cities or abroad.
"Climate change is just one more problem that the mainly agricultural
economies in this region are facing," Harutyunyan says.
"We are going to have to adapt, but there is still a lot of
scepticism. Many say there are too many uncertainties. I tell them
that uncertainty cannot be an excuse for inaction."
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/conflicts_fuel_caucasus_climate_fears_20130626/
From: A. Papazian