RTT News
11/27/2007 1:48:50 PM A report
commissioned by the UN's Human Development Program has warned that the
world has less than a decade to change course to avoid an irreversible
ecological catastrophe.
The 400-page report released on Tuesday
urged rich nations to pay $86 billion by 2015 to help the poor adapt to
global warming, of which the U.S. government needs to cover $40 billion.
The
UN agency held the U.S. and other well-developed countries most
responsible for the rising levels of carbon dioxide and other
heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere, mainly attributed to the use of
coal, oil, and other fossil fuels. Consequently, the greatest financial
responsibility lies with the world's richest countries to bear the
largest burden in cutting emissions and in providing financial aid to
the poor, the panel of experts said.
The UN Development Program
called on the developed countries to reduce emissions by at least 30%
by 2020 and by 80% by 2050. Developing nations should cut emissions by
20% by the middle of the century.
The expert panel has warned
that floods, droughts and other climate disasters will rob millions of
children in the poorer countries of the decent meals and education they
need. A warmer world "could stall and then reverse human development"
in the countries where 2.6 billion people live on $2 a day or less.
The
harsh warning from the UN's Human Development report came just ahead of
the climate summit to be held next week in Bali, Indonesia, to discuss
a successor to the current climate treaty, the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.
Incidentally,
Indonesia's environment minister said Tuesday that global warming was
to blame after the capital of Jakarta was partially flooded, forcing
thousands of people to flee their homes and cutting off a highway to
the international airport.
"The poorest countries and most
vulnerable citizens will suffer the earliest and most damaging
setbacks, even though they have contributed least to the problem," the
report says.
Olav Kjorven, head of the U.N. Development
Program's bureau for development policy, projected a dreadful picture
that global warming is going to bring about in the near future. 600
million people more in sub-Saharan Africa will go hungry from failing
agriculture, an additional 400 million people will be exposed to
malaria and other diseases and another 200 million will be flooded out
of their homes, he said.
The report has warned that no country is going to escape the impact of global warming, irrespective of its wealth or power.
The
UN report also pointed out developed countries' failure to meet their
targets under the Kyoto protocol for cutting greenhouse gases by 2012.
While France, Germany, Britain and Japan have reduced their emissions
to a certain extent, the European Union is falling short of its goal of
a 20 percent cut by 2020.
The report cites possible consequences
such as women and young girls having to walk further to collect water
in the Horn of Africa, people erecting bamboo flood shelters on stilts
in the Ganges delta, and others planting mangroves to protect
themselves against storm surges in the Mekong delta.
Despite
possessing the financial resources and the technological capabilities
to counter the wrath of global warming, the world lacks “a sense of
urgency, human solidarity, and collective interest," the UN report
concluded.
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