History Can No Longer Guide Farmers, Investors:
U.N.
Date: 27-Aug-09
Country: SWITZERLAND
Author: Laura MacInnis
History Can No Longer Guide Farmers, Investors
A farmer harvests a field of wheat in Hirson, northern
France, August 6 2009.
Photo: Pascal Rossignol
GENEVA - Climate change has made history an inaccurate guide for farmers
as well as energy investors who must rely on probabilities and scenarios
to make decisions, the head of a United Nations agency said on
Wednesday.
Michel Jarraud, director-general of the World Meteorological
Organization, said that water and temperature projections have become
more valuable than the historical weather data that long governed
strategy in agriculture, hydro-electric power, solar technology and
other fields.
"The past is no longer a good indicator of the future," the WMO chief
told a press briefing, describing climate modeling and prediction as key
to fisheries, forestry, transport and tourism, as well as efforts to
fight diseases such as malaria.
People looking to build energy infrastructure are especially hungry for
specific environmental information that can affect the long-term
profitability of their projects, he argued.
"If in 100 years there is not going to be water going into the dam, it's
not a brilliant investment," Jarraud said.
In the farming sector, the Frenchman suggested that guidance passed down
through generations about how to prepare and manage crops was becoming
less relevant because of changing patterns of heat, humidity and water
access around the world.
TRADITIONAL WISDOM
"This traditional knowledge is no longer adapted. It's exactly because
your grandfather did this that you shouldn't do it, because the context
has changed," he said.
"This is something completely new -- to make decisions not on facts or
statistics about the past, but on the probabilities for the future," he
said.
About 1,500 policy-makers, researchers and corporate leaders will meet
next week in Geneva to seek to improve the way climate information is
collected and shared, among governments and also with the private
sector.
That August 31 to September 4 meeting, which will take the pulse of
countries who will seek in December to clinch a new global climate pact,
is due to include top U.N. officials including Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
and 80 ministers and 20 heads of state or government, mainly from the
developing world.
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