--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
US: July 13, 2007
NEW YORK - New York's Wall Street, Boston's historic areas and Atlantic City's casinos may all suffer frequent devastating flooding by the end of the century unless the world sharply cuts greenhouse emissions, a new report said on Wednesday.
"The very character of the Northeast is at stake," Peter Frumhoff, director of science and policy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said in an interview about the report, called "Confronting Climate Change in the US Northeast." UCS collaborated with 50 scientists and economists to produce the peer-reviewed report about climate impacts to the Northeast.
It found that New York City could be hit once a decade with the type of extreme flooding that now occurs once every century as a result of rising seas and more frequent storms brought about by increased heat-trapping emissions from tailpipes, industry, and forest burning.
Boston and Atlantic City could be hit by such floods every two years, said the report, which used projections from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2007 assessments.
While it's hard to predict how much death and damage could be caused by the floods, they could carry risks as dangerous as the 1938 Northeast hurricane that killed hundreds and swept away thousands of buildings, Frumhoff said.
But the flooding risks could be lowered if global greenhouse gas emissions are cut 80 percent by 2050, he said.
The United States does not regulate greenhouse gases, but several states and regions are taking the lead. California aims to make such sharp cuts by mid-century, and New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine signed a similar law last week. Florida Gov. Charlie Crist is expected to sign an executive order this week aiming for such goals, according to draft regulations released on Wednesday.
Critics of those laws say the states might not be able to control pollution from power plants outside the state that send electricity into the states with emissions targets.
But Frumhoff said the states could be a model for Washington to push through a similar national law in the world's top greenhouse gas emitter.
In addition, Northeast cities from New York to Concord, New Hampshire, could swelter through 25 days a year of temperatures above 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 Celsius) if emissions are not cut, the report said. The number could be reduced to about a quarter of that in a lower-emissions scenario.
Trees that shade the Northeast like hemlocks and maples could die from parasites and warmer conditions.
Cutting emissions will take a revolution in energy practices on the level of about a century ago as the country shifted to electricity and cars, the report said. Now about 3 percent of homes get electricity from non-hydroelectric alternative energy, like wind and solar power.
Capturing carbon at power plants that burn coal, which emits more greenhouse gas than any other fuel, could play a role in such a revolution, many environmentalists say.
Critics say the United States should wait for rapidly developing countries like China and India to agree to similar carbon cuts before moving quickly into new technologies.
Frumhoff said if the United States acts quickly on new technologies it could export them to developing countries. "We need to be leaders, not laggards," he said.
Story by Timothy Gardner
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
