Posted on 04/10/2007 12:18:41 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
BANGKOK, Thailand - Warming temperatures could result in food shortages for 130 million people across Asia by 2050 and cause potentially catastrophic problems in Africa, wiping out one of the continent's staple crops altogether, according to a U.N. report released Tuesday.
Climate change threatens the ecologically rich Great Barrier Reef and sub-Antarctic islands, and could melt the snow on Africa's Mount Kilimanjaro, according to the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
A summary of the full, 1,572-page document written and reviewed by 441 scientists was released Friday. The latest document, the second of four reports including the summary, tries to explain how global warming is changing life around the world, region by region.
Further details were unveiled Tuesday in regional news conferences.
The report suggests that a 3.6-degree increase in mean air temperature could decrease rain-fed rice yields by 5 percent to 12 percent in China. In Bangladesh, rice production may fall by just under 10 percent and wheat by a third by the year 2050.
The drops in yields combined with rising populations could put close to 50 million extra people at risk of hunger by 2020, 132 million by 2050 and 266 million by 2080, the report said.
Water shortages will also become more common in India as the Himalayan glaciers decline, while nearly 100 million people annually will face the risk of floods from seas that are expected to rise in Asia between 0.04 inches to 0.12 inches annually, slightly higher than the global average.
"Unchecked climate change will be an environmental and economic catastrophe but above all it will be a human tragedy," Achim Steiner, executive director of the U.N. Environment Program, said in a statement.
"It is absolutely vital that international action is taken now to avoid dangerous climate change," he said. "Otherwise the consequences for food and water security in Asia, as for many other parts of the world are too alarming to contemplate."
The report said Africa is the continent most vulnerable to the effects of climate change. The fallout from a swiftly warming planet — extreme weather, flooding, outbreaks of disease — will only exacerbate troubles in the world's poorest continent, said Anthony Nyong, one of the lead authors.
The panel predicts that sea levels could rise on the eastern Africa coast, leading to flooding that could cost 10 percent of each country's gross domestic product. East African countries have limited or no budgets for dealing with such emergencies and usually depend on foreign aid.
Wheat, a staple in Africa, may disappear from the continent by the 2080s, the report said.
Africa has "the least responsibility for climate change and yet it is perversely the continent with the most at risk if greenhouse gases are not cut," Steiner said.
But Nyong said African governments cannot rely on outside aid to fix problems from climate change. "It is dangerous ... for African governments to continually and perpetually depend on aid for such things that have such a major impact on what we do," he told reporters in Nairobi, Kenya.
In Europe's Mediterranean region, climate change will sap electric power generation, reverse long-standing tourism trends, raise sea levels in coastal regions and leave millions of people with water shortages, scientists said.
Mediterranean ecosystems are among the world's most sensitive and will thus be among those hardest-hit by global warming, said Jose Manuel Moreno, a Spanish scientist who helped write the report on Europe. By 2070, between 16 and 44 million Europeans are projected to be suffering water shortages, he added.
For Australians and New Zealanders, the warming temperatures will be felt mostly through more extreme weather.
"Heat waves and fires are virtually certain to increase in intensity and frequency," Kevin Hennessy, a lead author on the chapter for Australia and New Zealand, said in a statement.
"Floods, landslides, droughts and storm surges are very likely to become more frequent and intense and frosts are very likely to become less frequent," he said.
In the South Pacific, rising seas are "expected to exacerbate inundation, storm surge, erosion, and other coastal hazards, thus threatening vital infrastructure, settlements, and facilities that support the livelihood of island communities," according to the report.
While the South Pacific islands will struggle to adapt to climate change, the report said Australia and New Zealand have "considerable capacity" to adjust. Efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions should be launched, although the report predicted immediate reductions would not offset climate changes in these countries until at least 2040.
In Asia, the report calls for mainstreaming of sustainable development policies. It also suggest improving public food distribution networks, disaster preparations and health care systems to reduce the vulnerability of developing countries.
___
Associated Press Writer Tom Maliti contributed to this report in Nairobi, Kenya.
“Climate change could cause widespread food shortages.” —Minorities and the poor to be hardest hit! LOL
There is another post today revealing that the Sun is currently engaged in a 1,000 year sunspot cycle high.
The UN, and their attendant lackeys in the scientific community, have determined beyond all doubt that that 3.6 degree jump will indeed occur, because they've determined that the Gods are most angry at us (witness that hot Sun!), specifically at people in wealthy, democratic nations, and most specifically white Christian males.
In order to mollify these angry Gods, whom we, the poor peon masses (who pay sucker taxes to our fearless leaders) have absolutely no knowledge of, and must consequently bear the brunt of said mollification, tribute must be exacted by their (self-appointed) representatives, so they (and fate perchance, the rest of us) might survive, not merely well, but very well. (That's them, not us!)
Yes, wealth must redistributed, and since Africa, defenseless as it is, and Asia (read:China) being vulnerable, are areas with proven track records of indigenous popular support of governmentally derived solutions to intractable problems created by said indigenous popular support, it is only right and proper that these besieged areas be the initial recipients of said approved transfers.
However, with the soon-to-be established caliphates in Europe on the horizon, special consideration will be given to them, also.
As for areas inhabited primarily by the cretin white Christian males, programs will be rapidly introduced to assure that they will replace Darfur's refugees and Bangladesh's teeming millions at the bottom of the economic, spiritual and political totem pole.
It is, after all, only just. And only an organization as diverse and historically peace-loving as the UN can make such a determination of such things.
So there! Get with the program!
CA....
Another headline...”Millions face the U.N. and its Bullshit”.....
The whole Global Warming thing is to spread socialism... either Eurosocialism, or to weaken us to the point where Soviet style Communism can take us over without a shot fired. It also is the reason that they (The socialists) say that 9/11 was either caused by the US, allowed to happen by the US, or was deserved by the US. It allows them to discredit the entire WOT.
And forcing countries, which can ill afford it, to make massive changes that won’t make a hill of beans worth of difference in the warming, will only make it worse for their citizens, who they MIGHT have been able to help, if they’d had the available funds.
LOL!
Poetic. This sounds like something from the UN. I get it now. Thanks.
PS - Periods (.) are your friend. It’s like a comma but with the little tail. It separates complete thoughts and punctuates succinct points. :o)
But this is a UN-type regurgitation, and this is how those pontificating pop-offs write (and talk!).
I mean, when listening to the mellifluous beauty of a high-ranking appointed official speaking, why use pedestrian and mundane periods, when the masterful comma will at once give us more bang for the buck and entertain us (the general effluvium of society, meaning us) to boot?!?
CA....
Look! It’s the population bomb all over again! We are going to see mass starvation just like we saw in the 1980s, uh... oops.
Unlikely.
What’s more likely, is that they will run short of food because someone is burning their food - “green” energy.
Go ahead, burn that corn ethanol. By doing so, some poor Mexican family will not be able to afford corn tortillas.
Quote: “One of these days the next Ice Age will begin, and when it does, shorter growing seasons will cause crop yields to diminish, leading to the eventual starvation of millions of people.
Shouldn’t we be looking for ways to warm the planet when the next Ice Age comes?”
I think the Liberals are salivating looking forward to this day. All of the oil on the planet will have been used up and Al Gore’s great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great Grandson will be screaming about how if only we hadn’t all driven gas-guzzling SUVs, there would be plenty of oil left to add green-house gased to the atmosphere to warm and save the world. ;)
I heard on NPR's market place today driving home a person claiming that the Bush had "failed" to take radical enough measures against global warming and that the science is settled enough that we need drastic measures NOW.
Wasn't it the darling of the left (Bill Clinton) who failed to get KYOTO ratified in the Senate and never did anything about GW beyond lip service?
I don't normally listen to NPR, I can't stand the smug liberalness of their reporters.
KYOTO is so onerous to the US that even Bill Clinton refused to sign it - even after much lobbying by our good friend, Igor.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.