My View: Climate change issue must be dealt with

Published: 18 January, 2007

The meeting of the intergovernmental panel on climate change in Valencia and also in Bali has confirmed that climate change is a fact and that humans are responsible for it.

Such changes have become one of the major concerns for society and businesses, and the wine industry is no different to any others. In fact, most factors responsible for the production of quality grapes such as weather, soil, temperature and rainfall have already started to be affected by climate change.

Even under a business-as-usual scenario of greenhouse gas emissions, climate change will have a tremendous effect in most wine-producing regions. We can expect them to change drastically within the next 25 to 40 years.

At the second World Meeting on Climate Change and Wine to be held in Barcelona on February 15-16 scientists will present the results of their research on the observed impacts of climate change in the most important wine producing regions.

Miguel Torres, Tony Sharley, Bruno Prats, Stephen Skelton MW and Ernst Loosen will share their experiences on how wine production is being affected from Bordeaux to Chile, while Al Gore will touch on the responsibility that the industry has towards climate change.

Any serious wine professional should take the time to attend this event, because not only is it a conference about wine but also a profoundly moral issue.

Pancho Campo is the president of the Wine Academy of Spain

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