Times of India
BRASILIA:
Climate change could have apocalyptic consequences for the world's poor and
tackling it will require cuts in greenhouse gases costing 1.6 per cent of global
annual GDP, the UN Development Program said in a report on Tuesday.
Entitled "The Struggle Against
Climate Change," the UNDP report paints an alarming picture of the climate
change problem and urges richer countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions by at
least 80 per cent by 2050, with cuts of 30 per cent by 2020.
The proposed reductions in
emissions are "stringent but affordable," the report said.
Between now and 2030, the
average annual cost would amount to 1.6 per cent of global GDP, said the report
to be presented on Tuesday at a ceremony attended by UNDP chief Kemal Dervis and
Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
"This is not an insignificant
investment. But it represents less than two-thirds of global military spending.
The costs of inaction could be much higher," the UNDP report said.
On its first page, the
document states that "climate change is now a scientifically established fact.
We know enough to recognize that there are large risks, potentially catastrophic
ones."
In the study
commissioned by the UNDP, a panel of experts examined how climate change could
play out, considered how to tackle the crisis and asserted the cost of fixing
the problem will not be the same for every country.
"Those who have largely caused
the problem -- the rich countries -- are not going to ... suffer the most in the
short term," the report said.
"It is the poorest who did
not, and still are not, contributing significantly to greenhouse gas emissions
that are the most vulnerable."
Addressing the disparity in
costs represents the most difficult challenge for policy makers and the authors
warned: "We should not allow distributional disagreements to block the way
forward."
An eventual rise of
three degrees Celsius in global temperatures will bring drought, tropical storms
and a rise in sea levels that will hit the economies of developing countries
hardest.
"In terms of
aggregate world GDP, these short term effects may not be large. But for some of
the world's poorest people, the consequences could be apocalyptic," it said.
In analyzing possible steps to
alleviate climate change, the report argues that the effort must include drastic
cuts to greenhouse gas emissions along with adapting to the effects of global
warming.
"Adaptation is
ultimately about building the resilience of the world's poor to a problem
largely created by the world's richest nations," it said.
For poor countries, climate
change will bring a deterioration in agricultural production, declining access
to health and education services, and less access to markets -- generating yet
more poverty, it said.
The aim
of the UN report was to encourage countries to confront the problem, said Ken
Watkins, a member of the expert team that prepared the document.
"We are issuing a call to
action, not providing a counsel of despair. Working together with resolve, we
can win the battle against climate change," Watkins said.
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