Posted on 10/09/2006 8:59:20 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
SYDNEY, Australia - Hotter temperatures and higher sea levels could devastate Asian economies, displace millions of people and put millions more at risk from infectious disease, according to a climate change report released Monday.
Global temperatures will rise by up to 4 degrees by 2030, particularly in the arid regions of northern Pakistan, India and China, predicted the report, conducted by Australia's main research agency, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization.
It said there is "little room for optimism" about the effects of climate change in the Asia-Pacific region unless governments take immediate action to curb carbon dioxide emissions.
Higher temperatures coupled with changing rainfall patterns, including more tropical cyclones, flooding and heavier monsoons, could put millions of people at a greater risk of malaria, dengue fever and other infectious diseases, the report warned.
It also predicted that millions of people living in low-lying coastal communities in Bangladesh, Vietnam, China and many Pacific islands could become displaced as sea levels rise by up to 20 inches over the next 65 years.
"Local and regional economies will be hit hard from chronic food and water insecurity and epidemic disease, as well as extreme weather events," said the report, which was commissioned by 12 environmental, church and nongovernment organizations.
The report's author, research scientist Ben Preston, said the region's poorest countries would bear the brunt of climate change.
"For many of these nations, they rely on agriculture not only for subsistence, but also it's a major component of their economies," he said. "So significant impact to agricultural productivity affects the ability of people not only to feed themselves, but also to make money."
Global warming could also alter or destroy the coastal ecosystems upon which millions of people depend for fishing or tourism-related income, Preston said.
He said many Asian countries have little or no information about the risks of climate change, and are totally unprepared to deal with its impact on their economies.
The report calls on the Australian government to help developing countries in the region invest in renewable energy sources and better prepare for large-scale natural disasters.
It also encourages Australia to review its immigration laws to take in people displaced by climate change.
Prince Charles samples a jug of Yorkshire Wine. After New World producers Australia and Chile, French winegrowers could soon face new competition from Britain, as global warming helps grapes take root in milder cross-Channel climes, scientists say.(AFP/Pool/File/John Giles)
England did have a wine industry before it turned Protestant in the sixteenth century.
How funny.
I spent 40 years flying all over the eastern half of the US, and all I wanted was someone that could tell me what the weather would be coming home that night.
And these guys are telling us what is going to happen in the year 2020.
My o my, how wonderful our science has become!
The science of BS, that is.
Rising seas could leave millions homeless in Asia
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061009/wl_nm/environment_australia_sealevels_dc
Michael Perry
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Millions of people could become homeless in the Asia-Pacific region by 2070 due to rising sea levels, with Bangladesh, India, Vietnam, China and Pacific islands most at risk, says Australia's top scientific body.
A climate change report by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) found global warming in the Asia Pacific region could cause sea levels to rise by up to 16 cm (six inches) by 2030 and up to 50 cm (19 inches) by 2070.
Rising temperatures will also result in increased rainfall during the summer monsoon season in Asia and could cause more intense tropical storms, inundating low-lying coastal villages.
"The coastlines of Asia-Pacific nations are generally highly vulnerable to the effects of climate change, particularly sea-level rise caused by rising global temperatures," said the CSIRO report released on Monday.
"Vast areas of the Asia-Pacific are low lying, particularly the small-island states, as well as the large river deltas found in India and Bangladesh, Southeast Asia and China."
Sea level rise between 30 to 50 cm (11 to 19 inches) would affect more than 100,000 km (62,140 miles) of coast, particularly China's Pearl Delta and Bangladesh's delta, said the report.
"As sea level rise exceeds half a meter, the area affected in the Asia-Pacific region rises to over half a million square kilometres, affecting hundreds of millions of people," it said.
"Large areas of Bangladesh, India, Vietnam are inundated and Kiribati, Fiji and the Maldives are reduced to just a small fraction of their current land area."
ENVIRONMENTAL REFUGEES
The report also said rising sea levels and increased rainfall would spread infectious diseases in the region, leaving millions more at risk of dengue fever and malaria.
It said local and regional economies would be hard hit by chronic food and water insecurity, warning Sri Lanka's GDP could fall by 2.4 percent with less than a two degree Celsius warming.
The report also warned of environmental refugees fleeing their flooded homelands, citing growing migration from some South Pacific island states already suffering rising sea levels.
Some 17,000 islanders applied for New Zealand residence in the last two years, compared with 4,000 in 2003, it said.
The low-lying South Pacific island nation of Micronesia has experienced an annual sea level rise of 21.4 mm since 2001.
The report, commissioned by Australian aid agencies, prompted calls for Canberra to do more to combat climate change and to be more open to environmental refugees.
Australia has not signed the Kyoto Protocol to cut greenhouse gases, which cause global warming, and has rejected requests from Pacific islands to take environmental refugees.
World Vision Australia chief, Reverend Tim Costello, called on Australia to review immigration programs to consider people displaced by rising sea levels.
"This is enlightened self-interest, because there are going to be so many environmental refugees knocking on our door, flooding here with the sea levels rise as predicted and...the failure of economics and crops because of the rain changes in so many of these countries," Costello told local radio.
Yeah, yeah. White man's burden. I've heard this somewhere before. How about raising taxes and punishing vehicles as major contributors to green house gases while we're at it?
Lawrence Bartlett
SYDNEY (AFP) - Millions of people in the Asia-Pacific region could be forced from their homes and suffer increasing disease, cyclones and floods caused by global warming, scientists have warned.
Climate change will seriously threaten regional human security and national economies this century, according to a report by the Australian government's Commonwealth Scientific and Research Organisation (CSIRO).
"Chronic food and water insecurity and epidemic disease may impede economic development in some nations," the report says.
"Degraded landscapes and inundation of populated areas by rising seas may ultimately displace millions of individuals, forcing intra- and inter-state migration."
The report, commissioned by a coalition of environmental, aid, church and development groups, analyses predictions of temperature increases of up to two degrees Celsius by 2030 and up to seven degrees by 2070.
Scientists blame global warming on greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, produced mainly by the burning of fossil fuels including coal and oil, for causing rising temperatures worldwide.
"Rapid growth in large regional economies such as China and India has elevated human prosperity," the report says.
"However, unless ultimately decoupled from fossil-fuel use, such growth also threatens to exacerbate the climate challenge."
The CSIRO says that remaining below the generally accepted threshold for "dangerous" climate change of about two degrees Celsius would require global greenhouse gas emissions to be reduced by 30-55 percent below 1990 levels.
"If you don't, if you did nothing, you're likely to blow right past it," Benjamin Preston, key author of the report, told AFP.
Temperatures are likely to rise more quickly in the arid areas of northern Pakistan and India and western China, the report says.
But the region will also be affected by a rise in the global sea level of up to 16 centimetres (six inches) by 2030 and by up to 50 centimetres in 2070, along with regional variables.
Preston said two studies contained in the report estimate that a sea-level rise of a metre (39 inches) would displace between 75 million and 150 million people in the Asia-Pacific region.
Most at risk are the low-lying river deltas of Bangladesh, India, Vietnam and China, as well as the small Pacific island states.
Changing patterns of temperature and rainfall would also cause a shift in the distribution of dengue and malaria-carrying mosquitoes, likely exposing millions more people to such diseases by the end of the century.
"Higher temperatures may reduce the risk of cold-weather mortality, but increase heat-related mortality, while increased flooding and intensification of tropical cyclones would increase climate-related injuries and deaths," the report says.
The aid groups that commissioned the report said it was a wake-up call for Australia, one of the world's worst polluters on a per-capita basis.
"Climate change will fundamentally change the way we aid the world's poor," said World Vision Australia chief executive Tim Costello.
"It will undermine the value and impact of current aid spending and will lead to far greater calls for assistance from those hurt most."
Environmental and rights activists also called on the government to prepare to accept environmental refugees fleeing small Pacific island states hit by rising sea levels.
Right. Some more of the peaceful Muslims.
In a few years of global warming, I'vre read that Scotland will be prime wine country.
LOL! Ain't it the truth. Been there done that. Be the first guy to pull pitch in Kotzebue, Alaska in the morning and you get to find out if there is icing out there or not.
Or increase CO2 consumption, anywhere on Earth, any distance from the emission source.
Simple Propaganda Test 1: determine the ratio of negatives to positives. Climate change is often good. In this article there are zero positives so the propaganda score is infinity.
Simple Propaganda Test 2: add up the number of solutions offered. If there is only one solution then you are reading advocacy, not news. In this article they are trying to box in their prey to curb production, the engine of wealth, and the object of their envy.
Basic propaganda tests should be taught to every child by the third grade.
you're right. I've seen weathermen state that it was sunny out and all they had to do was look out the window and see that it was cloudy and drizzling.
---Hotter temperatures and higher sea levels could devastate Asian economies, displace millions of people and put millions more at risk from infectious disease---
Then again maybe not. :^)
These wacky newforecasters crack me up. Climate change MAY also HELP the Asian economies. We should probably wait and see before anyone gets hysterical over anything.
Is this the same group that was predicting an ice age 30 years ago? And weren't CO2 emissions the cause of the coming ice age?
Anything that can possibly submerge Hollywood is alright by me!
>The low-lying South Pacific island nation of Micronesia has experienced an annual sea level rise of 21.4 mm since 2001.
Even if true, this has nothing to do with GW.
Me too! If the caps would hurry up and melt, we could save a lot of money in New Orleans too.
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