Global warming is not only raising water temperatures, but sea levels as well, compounding the danger of the storm surges associated with typhoons. Jeff Masters, director of meteorology for the Weather Underground web site, told Reuters that rising sea levels had added about 5 percent to Haiyan’s storm surge. Whereas sea levels are estimated to have risen by two centimetres over the past century, the IPCC climate change assessment predicts rises of between 26 and 62 centimetres in the coming century.
The appeal by Philippine delegate Saño to the Warsaw summit will fall on deaf ears. As at previous international gatherings, the need to reduce carbon emissions is completely subordinate to nationalist rivalries and economic interests, especially of the major powers. No agreement has been reached to replace the very modest proposals contained in the so-called Kyoto Protocol, let alone the measures required to achieve the reductions generally agreed by climate scientists to be needed to prevent global warming.
The US, in particular, is intent on blocking a push by poorer countries for financial compensation for the impact of climate change, which is largely the historic product of advanced industrialised countries. The economic damage caused by more severe tropical cyclones alone could be immense. The Philippines has been hit by an average of 22 storms a year over the past decade, with damage averaging $200 million per typhoon.
The devastation caused by Typhoon Haiyan is not simply the product of immense forces of nature, but also of the profound social gulf between rich and poor that leaves millions of people highly vulnerable to such catastrophes. The homes flattened in cities and towns of the central Philippines were overwhelmingly the flimsy shanties of the poorest layers of society. While climate change is undoubtedly increasing the danger of future disasters, it is also a useful device for Philippine politicians, from President Benigno Aquino down, to divert attention from their own responsibilities and those of big businesses, local and foreign, in maintaining the present system of class exploitation that is deepening this divide.
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