Climate Change May Affect Your Travel Plans - and Those of Millions of Animals Bradnee Chambers - Inter Press Service
go to original April 11, 2014

Hawksbill turtle, Komodo, Indo-Pacific. (Image Broker/Robert Harding)

There are few experiences more frustrating than a delay in travel plans caused by bad weather. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), this may be something we will have to get used to in the future.

In March 2014, the IPCC released the 5th assessment of the impacts, adaptation strategies, and vulnerabilities related to global climate change. The report makes it clear that traveling in the future will become more of an ordeal.

Extreme weather events related to climate change, such as heat waves, storms and coastal flooding, are predicted to increase in frequency with only a 1°C increase in average global temperature – and current trends indicate even higher rises in average temperature. Besides the more serious effects, this is a recipe for more travel delays, larger numbers of travelers stranded and a greater overall risk associated with traveling.

... Migratory animals face many of the same challenges that humans do: having to choose when to travel, what route to take, where to eat and rest, and how long to stay before returning home. Unfortunately, these choices that are seemingly so trivial for humans are life-or-death decisions for migratory animals.

Read the rest at Inter Press Service

Dr. Bradnee Chambers is the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Environment Programme's Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals.

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