Whatever we think is the cause/s of climate change (carbon/methane emissions, cyclical change that would have happened whether we humans were here or not, a higher being teaching us a much-needed lesson) there surely now can be very little doubt that it is actually happening.

Anecdotal ‘evidence’ like the ‘facts’ that we in the UK don’t have snow at Christmas anymore, seasonal plants are now flowering throughout the year, Little Egrets have colonised from southern Europe, summer breeding visitors are arriving earlier, and Blackcaps now regularly over-winter etc etc don’t really add up to much by themselves, but there are indeed enough real facts out there to conclude that things are changing.

A recent statement by the Royal Society included the following observations:

• Global carbon dioxide concentrations continue to rise, and methane concentrations have started to increase again after a decade of near stability;
• The decade 2000-2009 has been warmer, on average, than any other decade in the previous 150 years;
• Observed changes in precipitation (decreases in the subtropics and increases in high latitudes) have been at the upper limit of model projections;
• Arctic summer sea ice cover declined suddenly in 2007 and 2008, prompting the realisation that this environment may be far more vulnerable to change than previously thought;
• There is increasing evidence of continued and accelerating sea-level rises around the world.

The statement went on to say that:

“Year on year the evidence is growing that damaging climate and weather events - potentially intensified by global warming - are already happening and beginning to affect society and ecosystems. This includes:

• In the UK, heavier daily rainfall leading to local flooding such as in the summer of 2007;
• Increased risk of summer heat waves such as the summers of 2003 across the UK and Europe;
• Around the world, increasing incidence of extreme weather events with unprecedented levels of damage to society and infrastructure. This year’s unusually destructive typhoon season in South East Asia, while not easy to attribute directly to climate change, illustrates the vulnerabilities to such events;
• Sea level rises leading to dangerous exposure of populations in, for example, Bangladesh, the Maldives and other island states;
• Persistent droughts, leading to pressures on water and food resources, and the increasing incidence of forest fires in regions where future projections indicate long term reductions in rainfall, such as South West Australia and the Mediterranean.

These emerging signals are consistent with what we expect from our projections, giving us confidence in the science and models that underpin them. In the absence of action to mitigate climate change, we can expect much larger changes in the coming decades than have been seen so far.”

As anyone who has even a passing interest in the news will know, the United Nation’s Climate Change Conference starts today in Copenhagen, Denmark. Attendees are attempting to agree action to tackle climate change. Whether this massively important conference (and does anyone seriously doubt that it is a massively important conference?) achieves anything more than setting a date for the NEXT conference, the fact is that climate change is already having multiple impacts on birds and their habitats, and is exacerbating many of the factors - habitat loss especially - which have put 1,226 bird species (or one in eight) at risk of extinction.

What impacts? According to a press-release by BirdLife International climate change is already hitting bird populations in several ways:

• range shifts and contractions (poleward in latitude and upward in altitude)
• changes in behaviour and phenology such as the timing of egg-laying, breeding, and emergence of insects as a food source
• disruption of species interactions (predators and prey) and communities
• exacerbation of other threats and stresses, such as disease, invasive species, and habitat fragmentation, destruction and degradation
• increased extreme weather events
• loss of coastal habitats including feeding areas for shorebirds and nesting sites for seabirds, or entire island ecosystems, due to sea-level rise
• ocean warming effecting ocean productivity, bringing knock-on effects further up the food change

There are numerous examples to back up these bullet-points.

In drought-ridden Australia, for example, the already arid habitat of the Endangered Mallee Emuwren is now so fragmented that a single bushfire could be catastrophic.

Modelling indicates that 57% of the already Critically Endangered Spoon-billed Sandpiper’s far northern breeding habitat could be lost by 2070.

If predicted sea-level rises of between 0.5 and 1.4m by 2010 are correct, then there will be irreversible altering or flooding of small islands, reefs, atolls and, in turn, the low-lying coastal and intertidal habitats of many shore-nesting birds such as terns. Research in the North-western Hawaiian Islands suggests that sea-level rise could cause the loss of a significant proportion of the nesting sites for the Vulnerable Laysan and Endangered Black-footed Albatrosses, and of the most populous remaining breeding sites for the Near Threatened Tristram’s Storm-petrel. Similar sea-level rise scenarios applied throughout the Pacific would virtually eliminate the breeding sites of the Endangered Phoenix Petrel and Vulnerable White-throated Storm-petrel.

Speaking about studies in North America, Melanie Heath, BirdLife’s Senior Advisor on Climate Change, says that,

“Analyses of citizen-gathered data from the past 40 years by Audubon…revealed that 58% of the 305 widespread species that winter on the continent have shifted significantly north since 1968, some by hundreds of kilometres.

In this study, movement was detected among species of every type, including more than 70% of highly adaptable forest birds. Only 38% of grassland species exhibited movement however [my underlining], reflecting the constraints of their severely-depleted habitat and suggesting that they now face a combined threat of the loss of habitat and climate space.”

Here in Europe another important project has seen the publication of ‘A Climatic Atlas of European Breeding Birds’. The Atlas uses ‘climate envelope modelling’, and predicts that without vigorous and immediate action against climate change, the potential future distribution of the average European bird species will shift by nearly 550 km north-east by the end of this century, reduce in size by a fifth, and overlap the current range by only 40%.

Perhaps three quarters of all Europe’s nesting bird species could suffer declines in range (and therefore population levels). Arctic and sub-Arctic birds, and some Iberian species, are projected to suffer the greatest potential range loss. Rising temperatures in the UK could result in the small areas of alpine-type habitat that we have here disappearing: the Snow Bunting, Capercaillie and Dotterel could be left with few areas of suitable climate. Projected changes for some species found only in Europe or with only small populations elsewhere, suggest that climate change “could set some on a path to extinction”.

Just how bad could climate change be for the birds across the planet as a whole? One study estimates that globally 15–37% of species could be pushed into extinction by 2050 as a consequence of climate change; another that each degree of warming could drive another 100-500 bird species extinct. Bird extinction rates could be as high as 38 percent in Europe, and 72 percent in northeastern Australia if temperature rises beyond 2 °C of pre-industrial levels.

Using data gathered by BirdLife International, researchers say that, “Given that the actual rise in global average temperature to date has been relatively modest…the impact of future climate change on biological communities will be severe unless global emissions are cut by the amount needed to limit global average temperature rises to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels.”

There’s already a mass of hard, scientific data online and this short article won’t make a jot of difference to the Copenhagen Conference of course, but it’s too important not to at least note that the Conference is taking place.

I don’t have any new answers either. I’m writing this on a mains-powered laptop, I took my child to Nursery this morning in a diesel-powered car, I have the heating on as I have a cold, and I work (at the moment anyway) for an airline. It’s all too easy to say this, but the world’s leaders really do need to act now and reach agreement in Copenhagen on far more than the date for the next get-together. At the very least they need to provide unequivocal proof to a sceptical population that things are changing and that we are to blame: a poll in The Times this week revealed that only 32% of Brits agree ‘that climate change is happening but is proven to be largely man-made’, 8% think that the view that climate change is man-made is environmentalist propaganda, and 15% say that the world is not warming at all!

Climate change is happening - as I said, we may disagree why but it is happening - and worrying about its effects on birds may seem self-indulgent to many people, but I’m not going to apologise for that. I love birds, my life is enriched beyond any measure I can come up with by them, and - yes - it matters to me that a little wren in Australia might go extinct because - as I see it - collectively we can’t work out a better way to live sustainably.

And if losing a few birds doesn’t matter to you it might be worth bearing in mind that birds are - almost literally - the Canaries in the Climate coal-mine, and if the world’s eco-systems break down they won’t be the only losers. We all will be.

EDITED TO ADD: By the way, what chance that supposedly educated reporters and newscasters will stop saying that “the Planet is in danger” anytime soon? The Planet is NOT in danger from climate-change. Biodiversity and most life-forms including our own on it are, but the planet will keep on happily spinning for quite a long while yet…

To learn more about climate change visit www.birdlife.org/climate_change

This posts has been written as part of our commitment to Birdlife International’s ‘Preventing Extinctions Programme‘, which we signed up to as Species Champions in January 2009.

Species Champions are ”a growing community of Companies, Institutions and Individuals who share our concerns and demonstrate their commitment to protecting the planet’s natural heritage by funding the work undertaken by our Species Guardians”.

There are different ‘levels’ of Species Champion (requiring different levels of financial commitment). Whilst we joined the PEP at a ‘lower level’ 10,000 Birds is now officially a Species Champion along with such conservation giants as Sir David Attenborough and the British Birdwatching Fair, conservation minded businesses like Swarovski Optik (who also sponsor 10,000 Birds of course), In Focus, and WildSounds, and a small number of unsung individuals like Dr. Urs-Peter Stäuble, Ed Keeble, and Peter Smith.

• For a full list of Species Champions please go to BirdLife Species Champions ‘Roll of Honour’.