'Act now - or millions face ruin from global warming'

Published on Monday 19 November 2007 00:37

CLIMATE change will reverse decades of development in Asia, threatening the livelihoods of millions of people, a coalition of aid agencies and environmental groups have warned.

According to the coalition, "the human drama of climate change will largely be played out in Asia", with almost two thirds of the world's population finding themselves on the front line of global warming impacts.

The report by the Working Group on Climate Change and Development calls on industrialised nations to act "first and fastest" to cut emissions, ensure technology transfer and increase adaptation funds to help Asia deal with the effects of global warming.

It says the international community must cut greenhouse gas emissions, halt deforestation for biofuel crops and draw up co-ordinated plans to relocate threatened communities.

The coalition wants the British government to take the lead by committing to mandatory year-on-year emissions reductions, and to keep its pledges on renewable energy, which have recently looked under threat.

The working group's report, "Up in Smoke", calls on energy companies and international investors to invest "aggressively" in renewables and phase out investment in fossil fuels. And it says India and China should move away from coal towards renewable power, which could provide them with long-term energy security and contribute to climate-change mitigation.

Andrew Simms, the policy director of the New Economics Foundation and co-author of the report, said: "Asia is at a critical juncture as the home to almost two-thirds of humanity. It has made real advances in reducing poverty but lies on the front line of impacts from climate change.

"Now, if it follows a fossil-fuelled western economic development path, it will set in train an irreversible course of events that will guarantee a great reversal in its own progress."

He warned that a lack of leadership by rich countries on climate change made it unlikely that Asia would abandon fossil fuels in the near future.

"To prevent catastrophic global warming, the only feasible alternative is for wealthy countries to dramatically reduce their 'luxury' greenhouse gas emissions, so that the 'survival' emissions of people in poor countries do not cause disaster," he said.

More than half of the four billion people in Asia live near coasts, putting them in danger from sea-level rises, while more extreme and less predictable weather patterns threaten the whole region, the report says.

Climate assessments by the Chinese government show agricultural productivity will fall by 5 per cent to 10 per cent if no action is taken, with the production of wheat, rice and corn decreasing by up to 37 per cent in the second half of the century.

Countries such as Bangladesh are particularly vulnerable to climate change, with flooding and droughts destroying agriculture and homes and increasing disease, the report says. And India could be threatened by energy and food supply insecurity, reduced fresh water supplies and increases in extreme weather events.

Many governments and individuals in Asia have been taking positive measures, such as cutting emissions, finding alternative energy and water supply systems, and preserving ecosystems.

But ahead of a United Nations meeting in Bali next month to begin negotiations on a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, the coalition warns that a decisive international agreement must be reached, in which developed countries take the lead in cutting emissions and massive investment for adaptation is provided for poor nations.

• The working group is made up of aid agencies and environmental groups, including Action Aid, Christian Aid, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, Oxfam, the RSPB, World Vision, NEF, the RSPB and WWF.

BROWN TALKS UP ECONOMIC BENEFITS OF FIGHTING CLIMATE CHANGE

PRIME Minister Gordon Brown will today claim that the battle against climate change is a "huge economic opportunity for Britain". In his first major speech on the environment, he will outline further ways in which Britain can cut its carbon emissions in a new push on global warming.

Mr Brown will highlight the latest report from the International Energy Agency which shows that on current trends, world energy demand in 2030 will be 50 per cent higher and global emissions 60 per cent higher than today. This weekend a major international report by the IPCC to the United Nations showed such trends would mean temperature increases of up to 4C by the end of this century and sea levels rising by 60cm.

But Mr Brown was also to say that by acting now, as the Stern report into global warming showed, this great challenge also presents "a huge economic opportunity for Britain". He will tell his audience that building a low carbon economy will mean developing new technologies, industries and jobs.

The Prime Minister was expected to say that halving global emissions by 2050 will require a technological revolution in clean energy and that just as Britain led the world with the industrial revolution so Britain can be a world leader in the new low carbon global economy.