London (dpa) - The "silent crisis" of climate change already
claims an estimated 300,000 lives a year around the world with annual
deaths expected to reach half a million by 2030, a report published
in London Friday warned.
Rising temperatures due to the changing climate already affected
the lives of 325 million people around the globe - a figure set to
rise to 660 million, or 10 per cent of the world's population, in 20
years' time, the report by the Global Humanitarian Forum (GHF) said.
Former United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan, President of
the GHF, described climate change as the "greatest emerging
humanitarian challenge of our time" at the launch in London Friday.
"Climate change is a silent human crisis," said Annan. It caused
suffering to hundreds of millions of people, most of whom "were not
even aware" that they were victims.
The world's poorest people, particularly women and children, were
the worst hit, "although they have done least to contribute to the
problem."
The report, entitled The Anatomy of a Silent Crisis," was
published ahead of preparatory talks in Bonn, Germany, on a follow-up
agreement to the Kyoto Protocol which expires in 2012.
Annan called for a new international agreement to contain climate
change and to reduce the widespread suffering it caused.
He said that despite its "dangerous impact", research into climate
change had up to now failed to address its "human face."
According to the report, the economic losses due to climate change
are currently estimated at 125 billion dollars per year, a figure
that would almost treble to 340 billion dollars by 2030.
In order to avert the worst possible scenario, funding to help
those in developing countries deal with the consequences of climate
change needed to be increased by 100 times, the report warned.
Most of the deaths would occur as a result of long-term
environmental degradation due to climate change, with causes
including malnutrition and disease, while others would be the result
of weather-related disasters.
By 2030, the number of people seriously affected, either in the
short term, for example through loss of their homes due to weather
disasters such as flooding, or in the long term through water
scarcity, hunger or disease, could rise to 660 million.
The report also warns that the majority of the world's population
did not have the capacity to deal with the impact of climate change.
As many as four billion people were vulnerable to the impact of
climate change, such as sea level rise and natural disasters, the
report said.
Those most at risk were living in some of the poorest areas in the
world, which were also most at risk from climate change, including
sub-Saharan Africa, South and South East Asia and small island
developing states.
"As this report shows, the alternative is greater risk of
starvation, migration and sickness on a massive scale," said Annan.
Copyright 2009 dpa Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH