|
The human cost of climate change |
|
|
|
|
Saturday, 03 May 2008 |
 If we calculate the human cost of global warming, countries will be forced to listen and take notes, according to a former senior United Nations.
Most people do not feel concerned by projections of rising temperatures or by the impact of climate change on the economy, but if it establishes a link between estimates of global warming and potential death, then countries will be forced to consider plans for prevention, noted Yvette Stevens, former deputy coordinator of emergency United Nations.
We need a''''Stern report on the human cost; people are not motivated by the impact of global warming on the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of countries, "said Stevens, who left the UN recently to retire.According to the Stern Report on the economics of climate change, written in 2006 by economist Nicholas Stern for the British government, if countries do not master their greenhouse gas emissions, the overall cost of climate change would amount to an loss of at least five per cent of global GDP each year. However, according to the report, the cost of reducing emissions to avoid the worst effects of global warming would amount to one percent of global GDP each year.
So far, projections and other forecasts of global warming have failed to inspire a majority of countries to develop national action plans.
Molly Hellmuth, a scientist at the International Research Institute for Climate and Society, located in the USA, observed that only 49 of the least developed countries (LDCs) had drawn up action programmes in favour of a National climate adaptation, as required by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Most least developed countries lack the capacity to develop such plans, they have other development priorities, she noted.
The developing countries need funds to strengthen their capacities. If one calculates the human costs, it would raise these funds, according to Ms. Stevens, as was the case following the 2004 tsunami, which occurred in the Indian Ocean. More than 220,000 people had been swept away by these waves colossal and unprecedented sum of 1,000 dollars in aid per person affected had been collected.
Deaths encourage people to put pressure on their governments to force them to act, organising or financing plans of action, "said Stevens.
By using new methods of calculating costs, we believe that the cost [of climate change] will rise at least 50 billion dollars per year, and much more if emissions of greenhouse gases are not reduced quickly, can be read in adaptation to climate change: What poor countries need and who should pay, a briefing paper recently published by the British development agency Oxfam. This amount is well above the forecasts of the World Bank, between 10 and 40 billion per year.
Do not finance the priorities of adaptation the most urgent and most immediate of the least developed countries could cost between one and two billion dollars, according to the document Oxfam. Donors seem not aware of the urgency: So far, they have yielded only 48 million dollars to international fund for least developed countries, less than 5 per cent of needs - an amount just enough to cover the needs of Haiti, Samoa and Kiribati.
The development agency has called for an initiative equivalent to the Stern report, but focused on examining the link between development and climate adaptation, and identifying several examples of best practice in terms of design and project financing, and provide more accurate estimates of costs and benefits of climate adaptation.
This approach would give developing countries a stronger foundation to integrate climate adaptation in their programmes and development budgets. It would, moreover, the high-income countries and high emission of CO2 a more precise estimate of funding that they are capable and responsible, said the agency.
|
|
Last Updated ( Thursday, 03 July 2008 )
|
