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Climate Change Threatens the Fight to End Poverty
The former United Nations secretary-general, Kofi Annan, brought about a remarkable consensus among world leaders to establish the Millennium Development Goals and for the world to meet these by 2015. But, as Annan's successor, Ban Ki-moon, told about 80 heads of state and government in September, it is now clear that climate change threatens the achievement of these goals, so vital to the wellbeing of human society and the elimination of widespread poverty.
Why is global action urgent and necessary to meet the challenge of climate change? The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has determined that warming of the climate is unequivocal; further, that average northern hemisphere temperatures during the second half of the 20th century were very likely higher than for any other 50-year period in the past 500 years and likely the highest in at least the past 1300 years.
The panel has also determined that most of the observed increase in temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations.
But climate change is not taking place in a smooth, linear fashion. For instance, the frequency of heavy precipitation events has increased over most land areas and so also the duration and intensity of droughts, particularly in the tropics and subtropics.
Climate change is likely to add to several stresses that already exist in the poorest regions of the world and affect the ability of societies in these regions to pursue sustainable livelihoods.
By 2020 between 75 million and 250 million people are projected to be exposed to an increase in water stress due to climate change in Africa. Coupled with increased demand, this will adversely affect livelihoods and exacerbate water-related problems.
Another sector likely to be affected adversely in some of the poorest regions of the world is agriculture. It has been assessed that agricultural production in many African countries and regions would be severely compromised by climate variability and change.
The area suitable for agriculture, the length of growing seasons and yield potential - particularly along the margins of semi-arid and arid areas - are expected to decrease. In some countries yields from rain-fed agriculture could be reduced by up to 50 per cent by 2020.
Another serious impact of climate change is the melting of glaciers all over the world, and this has serious implications for South Asia and parts of China. Glacial melt in the Himalayas is projected to increase flooding and rock avalanches from destabilised slopes and affect water resources downstream within the next two to three decades, due to decreased river flow as the glaciers recede.
Water availability is projected to be affected in Central, South, East and South-East Asia. Given the fact that population growth and increasing demand resulting from higher standards of living would require larger quantities of water, the impact of climate change could adversely affect more than a billion people in respect of water availability in Asia by the 2050s.
Climate change and its impacts in the most vulnerable regions require a careful evaluation of humanitarian assistance across the globe. Increased resources will be required for adaptation to climate change.
This undoubtedly would be a far better approach for the global community to pursue than to provide emergency assistance in the event of catastrophes and extreme events.
There are equity dimensions to climate change that also deserve attention. While adaptation is inevitable and urgent, the increase in emissions of greenhouse gases, if not mitigated by the developed nations, will lead to much higher temperatures and much more serious impacts. It is, therefore, essential to ensure that strategies involving both adaptation and mitigation are pursued.
The cost of mitigation, as assessed by the climate change panel, is very modest in relation to the cost of impacts across the world. If mitigation is not implemented, then income and wealth disparities between nations will increase, and the existence of poverty on a large scale, which should be ethically unacceptable, could pose a threat to global security and stability.
The possibility of large numbers of people becoming environmental refugees is not only a humanitarian problem of serious proportions but also has the potential for social disruption that needs to be avoided.
Stringent mitigation needs to be undertaken immediately, and existing technologies and methods are available for this. Adaptation to climate change, particularly involving the poorest communities in the world, assumes urgency.
In view of the new knowledge provided by the panel, the world needs to take climate change as a serious problem that needs a humanitarian approach.
Dr Rajendra Pachauri is the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which was the joint winner of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, and director-general of the Energy and Resources Institute, New Delhi.
© 2007 The Sydney Morning Herald
7 Comments so far
Show AllUnless, of course, the effects are so severe that they cause a die-off of sufficient quantity that the global population is cut back to a sustainable level with enough resources to divide up for the good life of all who are left.
Too few people grasp the fact that mankind is one - that the needless suffering of a few has an adverse impact on all of us. Any system where 80% of the nutrients are hoarded by 5% of the system can not be well. Mankind's most serious dis-ease is the result of poor distribution of resources. An estimated 30,000 die everyday of hunger, while tons of food rots in warehouses.
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A new vision for the world - The Global Marshall Plan
A new framework addressing the International Poverty Crisis and the International Environmental Crisis.
The Global Marshall Plan:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4121475898655621602
Also, the website:
http://www.global-commons.org
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"A human being is part of the whole, called by us 'Universe', a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest -- a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty." Albert Einstein
ONE is the campaign to make poverty history:
http://one.org/
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"The curse of poverty has no justification in our age. It is socially as cruel and blind as the practice of cannibalism at the dawn of civilization, when men ate each other because they had not yet learned to take food from the soil or to consume the abundant animal life around them. The time has come for us to civilize ourselves by the total, direct and immediate abolition of poverty."
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
depleting uranium,cell towers and satillites,bio-magnetics,radiation and evil men who would be king of the world,are threatening the fight to end poverty.......
I sure enjoy reading MaxHeMust's posts. Good thinking.
I think that part of the dimema is the old neocon saw that: no matter how much you feed them, they'll just have more babies than the world can support. And if we are honest, we should score that point to them. There can be no hope of a sustainable atmospheric outcome unless the right to have children is not suspended along with the right to have a private automobile.
Shocking thoughts, I know. But anything less is just putting your little finger in the Dike and hoping all those cracks that are spreading in front of your face don't mean anything....
pacplyer
Once upon a time ...the unregulated wild frontier... clearcut the forests, destroyed streams with mining tailings and overgrazed etc. Our globalized (deregulated) capitalism approaches the world like it was the wild frontier of profits. Profits are the only goal not the efficient/best use of a resource. A fishing ground will be left bare of fish by giant factory ships and international trawlers ...an oceanic strip mine or clear cut in effect. A formerly regenerating living resource is left dysfunctional and unable to restore itself and only then the ships move on...when the fish are gone. Underground aquifers are left depleted, farmland is developed into suburbs or paved over. We use it all up as fast and as long as we can ...till it's gone. All rationalized as a need to maximize profits.
There are too many of us to remain so cavalier about destroying sustainability like we are presently doing. Why are a coporation's profits allowed to destroy a renewable resource so severely that it cannot regenerate itself? Yes we are many, yes we need to try to limit (slow) population growth but we could easily maintain even greater numbers if sufficient attention is paid to regulating resource use rather than this short term intensive exploitation until it is all used up or permanently damaged or ruined.
This time the wild frontier is unregulated profits and we ALL are the natives unable to stop the destruction of our way of life. Civilization has never treated the natives or their land well but now even the civilized world will get a sense of what that is like for we are all natives of the Earth and we like our wild frontier grab all you can until it is gone. There is no place left to go... any primitive native could have told us that... long ago. The closing of the wild frontier happened eventually but by then it didn't matter much to the natives as their way of life was gone. So were the trees, the Bison and the land gobbled up by civilization. Call it economic karma.
Some might just say...OOPS!
Some will say ... they didn't do it themselves but somebody else came along and ruined things. Yeah yeah... the natives always say that and civilization always answered that it's too late now.
Seems a bit late and getter later. Good thing we are civilized... yeah well this time the natives ...always say that!
What is that old saying? "PAY NOW OR PAY LATER"
When you think about it The poor are more in harmony with this Earth then the rich.
The poor like most oother of Earth's creatures are just trying to survive.
The rich are using and abuising the poor in order for them to achieve more wealth.
Just look at Bush''s policy about birth control .He wants every child to be born so that they can be enslaved by the few rich.
While I congraulate the UN on their crusades to help the world's poor. They got to know the decreasing the EArth's Human population is the only key that will really make a dent in poverty.
I doubt there is anything anyone can do to stop a major human population die off that is coming soon,compliments of Mother Earth.
Then we have to throw in all the upcoming human caused wars over the last fresh water and the last agricultural areas.
And just wars because they can.
And again for the upteem time Soylent Green Is Tuesday