100 days to save the climate....way to Copenhagen

There are 100 days remaining until the UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen, where urgent action is needed by world leaders in order to save our climate.

We now have 100 days until Copenhagen. Greenpeace China displayed 100 children carved from ice at the Temple of Earth in Beijing today, to symbolise the “disappearing future” for the 1.3 billion people in Asia at risk of water shortage as a result of climate change. This event, matched in India with another ice sculpture, marks the 100-day countdown before the UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen - where we are urging governments to take strong, effective action to stop climate change.

The melting sculptures of 100 children are made from Himalayan glacier water from the source of Yangtse, Yellow and Ganges rivers. The ice sculpture in India is a huge “100” on a World Map and was unveiled in New Delhi to show “the world washed away” by glacial melts.

A climate tipping point is unfolding in the Himalayas. The rapid melting of glaciers caused by global warming is jeopardising the water supply for 1.3 billion Asians who live in the watershed of the 7 great rivers that originate in the region. If we cannot stop runaway climate change, babies born today – at this moment – will face a very different reality when they grow up, where water availability would be a serious problem.

The Himalayan glaciers are melting at a rate faster than recorded for other glaciers anywhere in the world. The IPCC suggests that glacier coverage will fall by at least 43 percent and possibly as much as 81 percent by the end of the century - depending on how effectively we act to restrain our greenhouse gas emissions.

China and India together account for one-third of the world’s population but both countries’ water resources (per capita are far below the global average. The two largest developing countries share the challenge of balancing the goals of development and environmental protection. They must pursue a low-carbon development path if we are to avert environmental and humanitarian disaster.

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