The most recent U.N. report on climate change predicts water shortages in Africa, plant species extinction in Europe and permanent drought for the southwestern United States.
The document was produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world’s most authoritative voice on global warming, and it says the phenomenon will change life around the world.
But it will be worse for some than others, and the report underscores a central injustice of climate change: The countries that grew prosperous as they filled the atmosphere with greenhouse gases have the means to mitigate its effects. Meanwhile, those benefiting little from industrialization will not be able to afford to offset the worst effects.
“It’s the poorest of the poor in the world, and this includes poor people even in prosperous societies, who are going to be the worst hit,” said panel chairman Rajendra Pachauri.
The most devastating consequences will occur in sub-Saharan Africa and the Indian subcontinent, according to the report. Bangladesh is expected to have an increasing number of flash floods, and Mozambique and Somalia could see more cholera as water temperatures rise.
The 1,572-page report, written and reviewed by hundreds of scientists, is the second in a series of four to be produced by the panel. Its first installment, which concluded with a high degree of certainty that human activity is to blame for rising temperatures, focused world attention on the need to curb the release of heat-trapping gases. But even if the world’s major industrialized nations immediately enacted strict greenhouse gas limits, the current buildup of tailpipe and smokestack emissions means that temperatures and sea levels will continue to rise over the coming decades.
The challenge will come in forging international emission limitations and helping poor countries cope with the impact of climate change.
The latest report is sure to be discussed at a summit of the Group of Eight industrial powers that will be held in Germany in June. And the United Nations is considering a high-level meeting of ministers and other senior delegates later this year to devise climate change policy.
It’s clear that the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitters, including the United States, need to stop using the atmosphere like it was a unregulated garbage dump.
It’s also their responsibility to help the world’s poorest nations withstand the potentially catastrophic effects of a worldwide temperature rise.
