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Climate Change To Dramatically Shrink Animal Habitats »
* More than half of all plants, a third of animals at risk-study * Rapid peak in greenhouse gas emissions could reduce impacts By Environment Correspondent Alister Doyle OSLO, May 12 (Reuters) - The habitats of many common plants and animals will shrink dramatically this century unless governments act quickly to cut rising greenhouse gas emissions, scientists said on Sunday after studying 50,000 species around the world. The scientists from Britain, Australia and Colombia said plants, amphibians and reptiles were most vulnerable as global temperatures rise and rainfall patterns change. About 57 percent of plants and 34 percent of animal species were likely to lose more than half the area with a climate suited to them by the 2080s if nothing was done to limit emissions from power plants, factories and vehicles, they wrote in the journal Nature Climate Change. Hardest hit would be species in sub-Saharan Africa, Australia, the Amazon and Central America. "Climate change will greatly reduce biodiversity, even for many common animals and plants," lead author Rachel Warren of the University of East Anglia in England said. The decline would damage natural services for humans such as water purification and pollination, she said. But the scientists said governments could reduce the projected habitat loss by 60 percent if global greenhouse gas emissions peaked by 2016 and then fell. Source Main page (current trends)
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