|
Singapore: More than half the colonies of Antarctica's penguins, including emperor penguins made famous by the Hollywood film Happy Feet, face decline or being wiped out if the world warms by two degrees Celsius, a report says.
Rising temperatures in coming decades would lead to less sea ice in the Southern Ocean surrounding Antarctica and fewer nesting sites and feeding grounds for penguins, global conservation group WWF said in the report Two degrees C is Too Much.
"The problem is very serious. Antarctica and the Arctic are the most threatened regions from climate change," Juan Casavelos, WWF's Antarctic Climate Change Coordinator, said on Thursday.
"In the Antarctic Peninsula, the temperature has risen 2.5 degrees Celsius in the past 50 years, which is five times faster than the global average," he said from Barcelona, where the report was released at this week's International Union for Conservation of Nature congress.
Global temperatures have already risen on average by about 0.6 degrees since the Industrial Revolution, mainly through the burning of fossil fuels.
The report said unless nations slash carbon emissions, the world would warm by an average two degrees in less than 40 years.
|
