Top World News Thu, 08 Feb 2001, 4:04pm EST

UN Warns Arctic Soil Is Melting, Releasing Greenhouse Gases

By Todd Zeranski

Fair use for educational purposes only!

Washington, Feb. 7 (Bloomberg) -- The Arctic's permafrost is melting because of global warming, releasing greenhouse gases that may exacerbate what many scientists warn is a growing climatic problem, a report by the United Nations Environment Program said.

Rising temperatures in the Arctic are melting the permafrost, allowing its organic material to be broken down by bacteria and released into the atmosphere, which could accelerate the greenhouse effect, Norway-based scientist Svein Tveitdal told a UN conference in Nairobi.

Permafrost is land that stays frozen through most of the year and, for thousands of years, has stored carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. About 14 percent of the world's carbon is locked up in Arctic lands, the UN said.

Melting permafrost could heighten concerns among scientists who predict that ecological calamities such as droughts and floods may result from global warming. Researchers at a UN conference in Shanghai last month said the Earth's average temperature could rise 10.4 degrees during the next 100 years, more than 60 percent higher than they predicted just six years ago.

Tveitdal urged governments to enact measures to limit climate change in the Arctic, including implementing the first step of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, calling for a 5 percent cut in greenhouse gases.

``The political response at the moment is far slower than the estimated rate of climate change this century,'' Tveitdal told the UN meeting.

Forests, Emissions Credits

Talks among 180 nations held in December at The Hague failed to reach agreement on how countries will limit emissions to meet the Kyoto targets.

Among proposals on the table are allowing countries to count forests and farmlands that absorb carbon dioxide toward meeting the greenhouse gas cuts, and to expand trading of emissions credits between companies complying with clean-air standards and those creating excess pollution.

The Bush administration has asked that an international conference on climate control be postponed two months, until July, so the U.S. can review its policy. Bush has called for boosting energy production, especially in ecologically sensitive arctic areas of Alaska, while doing so in ways that minimize harm to the environment.

The disintegration of the permafrost, widespread throughout the Antarctic and the northernmost Arctic, can cause serious damage to buildings, roads, pipelines and other infrastructure in places like Alaska and Siberia, the UN said.

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