New York Times Climate Change Articles 1990-1999

"An international group of scientists working under United Nations auspices has found that global warming could cause serious environmental damage starting in the early years of the next century, long before the maximum temperature levels predicted by many scientists are reached..."

"In June, the scientists advising the intergovernmental group predicted that under what it called the 'business as usual' scenario, the average global temperature would rise by nearly two degrees Fahrenheit by the year 2025 and by more than five degrees by the end of the next century The rate of increase, which scientists say is as important as the absolute increase because of the difficulty of adjusting to rapid climatic change, was predicted at about half a degree per decade..."

"It said that in that case, ocean water would expand and ice stored at the poles could melt, raising the level of the sea by 256 inches That would be enough to submerge the Maldives and inundate the coastal plains of Bangladesh and the Netherlands, oceanographers say..."

"The report said that if nothing at all was done, the global mean temperature could rise 54 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the 21st century..."

"The United Nations group's report today said that just to stabilize atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and chlorofluorocarbons at today's levels, there would have to be immediate cuts of more than 60 percent in their output Depending on how much was actually done to cut emissions, it said, global mean temperature would still keep rising between 01 degrees centigrade (018 degrees Fahrenheit) and 02 degrees centigrade (036 degrees Fahrenheit) per decade..."

"Noel J Brown of the United Nations Environment Program, said, 'We are facing a whole new category of ecological refugees' 4-Inch Rise in a Century Evidence suggests that sea levels have risen by 4 to 6 inches in the last century, and the median forecast is for a further rise of 8 inches by 2030 and 26 inches by 2100, said John C Topping, president of the Climate Institute in Washington, DC..."

"Representatives of 37 island nations that fear they may disappear beneath the waves if the world grows any warmer are voicing their concern at the slow pace toward an agreement on stabilizing the global climate These nations, including Cyprus and Malta in the Mediterranean, the Caribbean islands and archipelagos around the Pacific, say their existence is threatened by the rise of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere that contribute to the melting of the polar ice caps, which raises the ocean's level..."

"'The Alliance of Small Island States members are doomed to ecological, social and economic catastrophe within the foreseeable future,' Danielle de St Jorre, the Seychelles Minister of Planning and External Relations, told the meeting Friday 'Some will even disappear And if that happens they will take with them cultures, identities and values which are irreplaceable'..."

"A three-foot rise in ocean levels would render 72 million people homeless in China, 11 million in Bangladesh and 8 million in Egypt, or four times the island states' entire population of 23 million, he said..."