The Post
Associated Press of Pakistan
ISLAMABAD:
Climate change has emerged as a dangerous global phenomenon posing
serious threats to human development and resulting in food and water
scarcity, floods, cyclones and droughts.
This phenomenon would
severely affect human health, agricultural produce, water security,
ecosystems and increased exposure of the people to coastal flooding and
extreme weather events.
Climate change would make 2.6 billion
poor across the globe more vulnerable who neither have any control over
it nor have any voice to curtail emissions.
Drought-prone areas in sub-Saharan Africa will face different problems from flood-prone areas in South Asia.
But,
there is consensus that the phenomenon would result in an overall
hampering of human development, adding to pre-existing social and
economic vulnerabilities.
United Nation Development Programme
(UNDP) has identified five specific risk-multipliers of human
development reversals, they are: reduced agricultural productivity,
heightened water insecurity, increased exposure to coastal flooding and
extreme weather events, collapse of ecosystems and increased health
risks.
In its Human Development report, the UN agency has
pointed to around three-quarters of the world's population living on
less than $1 a day and depending directly on agriculture who would be
suffering severe losses.
Climate change scenarios point to
large losses in productivity for staple food linked to drought and
rainfall variation in parts of Sub-Saharan Africa and South and East
Asia.
Accelerated glacial melt in the Himalayas will compound
already severe ecological problems across northern China, India and
Pakistan.
By 2080, climate change could increase the number of people facing water scarcity around the world by 1.8 billion.
The
Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has also forecast an
increase in extreme weather events as droughts and floods are already
the main drivers of a steady increase in climate-related disasters.
On
an average, around 262 million people were affected each year between
2000 and 2004 with over 98 percent of them living in developing
countries.
Drought-affected areas will increase in extent
jeopardizing livelihood and compromising progress in health and
nutrition as increase in temperatures will fuel more violent tropical
cyclones.
Temperature increase would accelerate the sea level
causing widespread displacement of people in certain areas and the
inundation of several small island states. The magnitude of
displacement and coastal flooding victims may rise up to 230 million.
Ecosystem
would be under high stress and 20-30 percent species would be at `high
risk' of extinction. Coral reef systems, already in decline, would
suffer extensive `bleaching' leading to the transformation of marine
ecologies, with large losses to biodiversity and ecosystem services.
Climate
change will impact human health and an additional 220-400 million
people globally could be at increased risk of malaria.
Deaths would increase in S-Saharan Africa and more people will fall ill in other risk-prone areas.
Though
climate change scenarios do not predict when or where a specific
climate event might happen, yet the people may be warned of average
probabilities associated with emerging climate patterns.
The
IPCC and the United Nations have effectively shouldered the
responsibility to warn nations of harmful emissions and bring them to a
platform to discuss the issue and come out with the workable
solutions.The poor and developing nations are trying to convince the
major emitters of carbon dioxide like USA, China, India and other
nations to curtail emissions.
The situation would not be
different in other poor countries as even a small risk of droughts can
lead to large human development setbacks.
In this scenario,
the developed nations with massive gas emissions need to realise their
responsibility and let the poor also have a say to safeguard their
interests. Let it never be too late to mend, and let us start it now.
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