Hundreds of Millions at risk from the consequences of Climate Change by UN News / CARE / Action Aid / Save the Children 12:47pm 7th Apr, 2007   6 April 2007    Ban Ki-moon urges States to act decisively to mitigate worst effects of climate change.    United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, urged nations to make decisive efforts to alleviate the worst consequences brought on by global warming, after receiving the report, entitled "Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability," released in Brussels by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).    The study said that warmer global temperatures are causing profound changes in many of the earth"s natural systems. Approximately 20-30 per cent of plant and animal species assessed so far are likely to be at increased risk of extinction if increases in global average temperature exceed 1.5-2.5 degrees centigrade. According to IPCC forecasts, the earth is likely to warm by 3 degrees centigrade during this century, a temperature that would have largely negative consequences for biodiversity and ecosystem goods and services, such as water and food supply.    The report found that while some efforts are underway to adapt to climate change, they are, by and large, insufficient in dealing with the scope of the potential problems.    In a statement issued by his spokesperson, Mr. Ban "expresses his concern that the impacts of climate change are increasingly noticeable, and likely to become more so in the future as extreme weather events intensify."    He called on States which are party to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to act quickly to create a plan to tackle future needs in time to replace the Kyoto Protocol, an agreement requiring 35 industrialized countries and the European Community to reduce greenhouse gas emissions which is set to expire in 2012.    He voiced hope that countries will take steps towards creating a new environmental framework at the UN Climate Change Conference to be held in Bali, Indonesia, in December.    "Adequate, large-scale adaptation measures have the potential to alleviate some of the worst consequences outlined in the report, if Governments take action without delay," Mr. Ban said.    Climate change presents dangers that could affect the health of millions of people, the report found, for it could lead to increased malnutrition, deaths and disease due to higher concentrations of ground level ozone.    The number of drought-affected areas is expected to increase, and regions that currently rely on glacier-fed rivers for their drinking water, presently providing water to about one-sixth of the world"s popuation, will likely see reduced availability.    Berlin 6,2007    The Worst is Yet to Be, by Julio Godoy.    Hundreds of millions of people are at early risk from the consequences of climate change, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) confirmed in its new assessment published Friday.    The final version of the report "Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability" released in Brussels also warns that without drastic reduction of greenhouse gases, the resulting global warming would decimate flora and fauna, and imperil the lives of hundreds of millions of people.    The risks are particularly severe in regions around the Equator, in Africa, the river deltas of South East Asia, the Amazons region in Latin America and in low islands and other territories located near the oceans, the report says.    By 2020, up to 250 million people living in sub-Saharan Africa are likely to face water shortages, and in some countries food production could fall by half, the IPCC report warns. Parts of Asia would be endangered by the melting of glaciers in mountainous regions such as the Himalayas. Similar melting of European glaciers would endanger southern Europe, the paper says.    The report says climate change would especially affect the European Mediterranean region through hotter summers, and would lead to more moderate temperatures in the northern hemisphere, especially in Europe.    "In Southern Europe, climate change is very likely to have negative impacts by increasing risk to health due to more frequent heat waves, reducing water availability and hydropower, endangering crop production, and increasing the frequency of wildfires," the report says.    "In Northern Europe, climate change is likely to bring benefits in the form of reduced exposure to cold periods, increased crop yields, increased forest and Atlantic waters productivity, and augmented hydropower potential."    But it warns that climate change, believed by scientists consulted by the IPCC to be provoked by global warming caused largely by the burning of fossil fuels, would have damaging effects also in Europe and North America.    The report says a rise of two degrees Celsius in global temperature would trigger dramatic climate and environmental consequences everywhere.    A likely rise of temperatures of between one and six degrees within the next 100 years would lead to extinction of between a fifth and a third of all species of flora and fauna, and precipitate inundation of coasts and islands inhabited by hundreds of millions of people.    The IPCC"s new assessment is the result of research reviews and debates among some 2,500 scientists, including 450 lead authors. A final version of the paper was agreed in Brussels by some of the authors, and government delegates from 130 countries.    The United States and China are the world"s largest producers of greenhouse gases caused by the burning of fossil fuels. Together, they are responsible for more than 45 percent of greenhouse gas emissions.    The U.S. government rejects any binding reduction of greenhouse gas emissions under the Kyoto Protocol. China, considered a developing country, is not bound by the Kyoto agreement to cut emissions.    The agreement was signed in Kyoto in Japan in 1997. The agreed implementation period for reductions under the agreement is 2008-2012.    But international pressure is mounting on both countries, as demands grow for a new international agreement from 2013.    Even with the stated warnings less dire than originally envisaged, environment groups said the IPCC report presented a "nightmare vision", and urged industrialised countries to launch an energy revolution to create a carbon-free economy, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and keep global warming below the critical level identified by the IPCC.    "This is a glimpse into an apocalyptic future," Stephanie Tunmore, international climate and energy campainer at Greenpeace said in Brussels.    "What this report shows is that we are running out of time. The earth will be transformed by human-induced climate change unless action is taken soon and fast."    Friends of the Earth International"s climate campaigner Catherine Pearce said: "Unless we take action to reduce emissions now, far worse is yet to come, condemning millions in the poorest parts of the world to loss of lives, livelihoods and homes."    Hans Verolme, head of the global climate change programme at WWF said: "Doing nothing is not an option, on the contrary it will have disastrous consequences."    "The industrialised countries simply need to accept their responsibilities and start implementing the solutions," he added.    European environment commissioner Stavros Dimas said the report will spur the European Union"s determination to curb greenhouse gas emissions. "The world needs to act fast if we are to succeed in stabilising climate change and thereby prevent its worst impacts," Dimas said in a statement.    The report is the second assessment the IPCC has published this year. In the first report released in February the group said industry, transport and generation of electricity were principally responsible for greenhouse gas emissions.    The IPCC was created in 1988 by the United Nations Environment Programme and the World Meteorological Organisation "to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant to understanding the scientific basis of risk of human-induced climate change, its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation."    The group is due to release another report in May in which it will propose methods of reducing emissions.    April 6, 2007.    UN experts warn warming will damage society, nature. (Reuters)    In a major United Nations (UN) report, top climate experts have warned that global warming will cause faster and wider damage than previously forecast, ranging from hunger in Africa and Asia to extinctions and rising ocean levels.    The worst outcomes faced regions that are mainly poor and already facing dangers from existing climate and coastal hazards, let alone what might be worsened by human-caused warming, authors said.    "It"s the poorest of the poor in the world, and this includes poor people even in prosperous societies, who are going to be the worst hit," said Rajendra Pachauri, the chairman of the panel and an energy expert from India.    "People who are poor are least equipped to be able to adapt to the impacts of climate change and therefore in some sense this does become a global responsibility in my view."    05 Apr 2007    Children bear brunt of climate warming, by Jeremy Lovell. (Reuters)    Children will increasingly bear the brunt of global warming, a report said on Friday, while another said the climate would continue to heat up in coming decades regardless of efforts to curb emissions of carbon gases.    A third report, coming as scientists on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change finalise their analysis of what climate change will do to the planet this century, said business was already feeling its effects.    The Save the Children charity said up to 175 million children would be affected every year over the next decade by climate-related disasters like droughts, floods and storms.    This, it said, was 50 million a year more than in the 10 years to 2005. Being society"s vulnerable members, children would be hurt disproportionately, and millions more would be killed, forced from their homes or hit by hunger and disease.    "Children are already bearing the brunt of climate change and there will be millions more children caught up in climate-related natural disasters every year," said Jasmine Whitbread, head of Save the Children UK.    Scientists predict global average temperatures will rise by between 1.8 and 4.0 degrees Celsius this century, mainly due to burning fossil fuels for power and transport.    Business is already starting to feel adverse effects, according to another study on Friday by catastrophe risk modelling firm Risk Management Solutions.    It said financial losses from weather-related catastrophes had risen on average by two percent a year since the 1970s, and pointed to the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.    "Wealthy developed countries have much greater means than poorer countries to deal with the increased costs of weather-related catastrophes and to adapt to the changing climate hazards," said RMS research officer Robert Muir-Wood.    "However, even the wealthiest countries will find it a challenge to adapt quickly and effectively to the increased hazards posed by climate change," he added.    Britain"s Environment Agency said in another report on Friday that because of the time delay in the warming effects of carbon gases in the atmosphere, temperatures would continue to rise for the next 40 years regardless of emissions curbs.    As a result, the country would have to pour resources into coping with events like flooding and torrential rain storms.    "Our present efforts to reduce emissions will prevent destabilisation of the climate during the second half of the century," Environment Agency chief Barbara Young said.    "But for now we need to adapt to changes that are for all practical purposes unavoidable and committed," she added. "This means increased risk of flooding, coastal tide surges, water shortages and potential loss of biodiversity."    05.04.2007 (Action Aid)    The United Nations report on climate change should urge governments to act to help vulnerable people, ActionAid said ahead of the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report due to be released on Friday.    According to Yasmin McDonnell, policy analyst at ActionAid, the IPCC report “echoes ActionAid’s own research in seven countries in Africa showing that poor people are facing the effects of climate change now.”    ActionAid is appealing to Western governments to make the money available to help the most affected people adapt to the changes brought on by flooding and droughts due to climate change.    In addition, ActionAid believes local authorities must work with people who live through floods and droughts, listening to them so that they influence contingency plans.    "We’ve spoken to people who have first hand experience of climate change. Poor people are being left to fend for themselves and are finding their own ways of adapting to climate change as government help seldom materialises,” she said.    One woman from Accra, Ghana, whose home is now regularly flooded by rising water said: “When the rain starts, we turn off the electricity meter in the house and climb on top of our wardrobes. Our furniture has been custom made to help keep our things dry and in such a way that we can climb up and sit on top of it.”    Africa’s urban population is growing faster than any where else in the world. By 2010 there could be 33 cities with over one million people. Around 72% of Africa’s urban poor live in slums, where there is often no choice but to build homes on land prone to flooding.    People resort to bailing out with buckets, building temporary plank bridges, digging trenches and moving away to live with friends. There are few mechanisms for reducing flood risk and the poorest people are seldom consulted when it comes to planning.    “In earlier days, water used to come with low power, now it comes with heavy force that sometimes brings fishes from the sea to our rooms,” said Isatu Fofanah from Kroo Bay, Freetown, Sierra Leone.    While urban slums in Africa are becoming increasingly affected by volatile weather patterns, so too are the rural areas.    In Malawi, ActionAid has studied the link between changing climate and increasing rural poverty, finding that small-holder farmers are forced to plant crops at different times of year, as the rains come later and later, with poor returns on their harvests.    During the 1970s, records in Malawi showed there was only one flood affecting 20,000 people, and no droughts. By the 1990s, the picture had changed with two droughts and five floods, affecting 10 million people. Since 2000 there have been two major droughts and 11 floods, affecting 9 million people, with the decade yet to run its course.    “This is a wake up call to governments to take immediate action, as the effects of climate change are evident now,” said McDonnell.    05 Apr 2007    Governments must invest to help poor people adapt to climate change. (CARE International)    CARE is calling on governments worldwide to invest in helping developing countries cope with the devastating changes in their environment brought about by climate change.    "Tomorrow"s release of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group 2 report is expected to confirm what CARE has witnessed in the poorest countries in the world," said Geoffrey Dennis, Chief Executive of CARE International UK.    "The impacts of climate change are already taking place, and it is the poor that are suffering," Dennis continues. "Now, the British government and international community must step up to its responsibility and help these communities to adapt to the changes and challenges they are facing."    Previous IPCC reports have made it clear that those who have contributed least to climate change are the ones who suffer most.    CARE is already helping communities in Bangladesh prepare for increasing flooding, salinity and other effects of climate change. As a result, more than 7,000 households in 16 different communities in rural Bangladesh have adapted their agricultural methods and developed new ways of earning money that make them more resilient to and less at risk from the effects of increased flooding.    Similar successes can be achieved elsewhere if the developed world allocates appropriate resources and sets targets under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change to make this happen.
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