Oslo - Nobel Peace laureate Al Gore called for more action to tackle global warming Tuesday on the eve of a gathering in northern Norway of eight countries grouped in the Arctic Council. The former US president who won the 2007 prize for his efforts to highlight climate change was co-host of a meeting in the city of Tromso with Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Store.
"Climate change is happening faster and in a dramatically more visible way in the Arctic and Antarctic than anywhere else on earth," Store said in his opening remarks.
Higher temperatures mean that sea ice and glaciers melt, thereby raising sea levels.
In the Caribbean region some 40 million people would be affected, Kenrick R Leslie of the Belize-based Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre said, noting that population and infrastructure are primarily located along the coasts.
The meeting of researchers and others discussed threats from global warming with ramifications impacting wildlife in the polar caps to runoffs from the Andes and Himalayas.
Glaciers in the Himalayas and the Tibetan plateau store huge amounts of fresh water and "in Asia alone, about 2 billion people rely on water flowing to the oceans via major rivers," Store said.
If the cycles are impacted, effects include "drought, flash floods and seasonal shortages of water," Store said.
On Wednesday, Norway's two-year term as chairman of the Arctic Councils ends, and neighbouring Denmark takes up the baton.
The Arctic Council groups Canada, Denmark including Greenland and the Faroe Islands, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and the United States.
