Bleak outlook for poor as Earth warms

The world's poor will be the hardest hit by global warming this century, says a United Nations report on climate change.

Worldwide, heavier floods, worse droughts, more violent storms, failing agriculture and much increased disease can be expected, the report warns.

The underprivileged and destitute in developing countries will feel the impact most, and the income gap with developed countries will widen.

The report is the official view of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the body of several hundred scientists advising Governments on global warming.

The IPCC's findings, seen as the most authoritative estimates of changing climate, are used as the basis of policy by all Governments.

The 1000-page study complements a similar report on the science of global warming last month in Shanghai, which concluded that the world's average temperature will rise up to 6 degrees by 2100 - faster than originally thought - with sea levels rising an average of up to 88cm. In high latitudes the temperature increase is likely to be greater than the average.

This means glaciers and polar ice-caps melting, countless species of animals, birds and plant life dying out, farmland turning to desert, fish-supporting coral reefs destroyed, and low-lying island states in the Pacific and Caribbean under water.

Northern Hemisphere countries would probably become hotter, bringing a rise in deaths from heatstroke in cities and the onset of once-tropical diseases such as malaria and the West Nile virus, which arrived in the United States in 1999.

Africa, already suffering severe economic and social problems, would be most vulnerable to the warming.

Disease levels could shoot up, especially in crowded cities on the coast, which could also face inundation as sea levels rise.

In Asia, mangrove forests that protect river and sea banks could be swamped, especially in Bangladesh. Forest fires could become more frequent, and warmer conditions could increase the risk of infectious disease. In the Middle East, the report suggested, wars could break out over water resources.

The melting of glaciers in the Himalayas, which provide water to about 500 million people, could first cause huge flooding then massive water shortages. Much of Latin America could see a decline in crop yields, shrinkage of forests and the arrival of new diseases.

In Europe, the southern countries are more likely to be affected, with an increased risk of water shortage and a deterioration in soil quality that would affect agriculture. In more northerly countries such as Britain, flooding would be worse and tropical diseases could become endemic.

Roger Higman, Friends of the Earth's climate campaigner, said: "This catastrophe was made in the rich countries of the north. Governments in industrial countries must agree on radical cuts in our use of coal, oil and gas, and big increases in the use of renewable power. If we don't act now it might be too late."

This year, the world's Governments meet in Germany to try to agree on ways of achieving the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gases. The last such meeting, in The Hague in November, failed to do so.

The Swiss-based World Wide Fund (WWF), as well as Greenpeace International, regard the United States as a key obstacle to a full global pact.

"It is time for Governments, to show that they are taking the reality of climate change seriously," says Bill Hare, climate director of Greenpeace.

- HERALD CORRESPONDENT

Herald Online feature: Climate change

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

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Summary: Climate Change 2001

United Nations Environment Program

World Meteorological Organisation

Framework Convention on Climate Change