Climate change is inextricably linked to poverty. As the droughts continue and as the sea level rises, hundreds of thousands will be forced to resettle. The most recent conference on climate change in Copenhagen concluded that the climate is changing faster than previous models suggested. Rhetoric and fear mongering aside, these are serious issues with serious consequences.
For instance, we know that if greenhouse gas emissions do not see a downward trend by 2015, then it will become next to impossible to stop the world from heating up by 2 degrees Celsius. The last time the world saw a 6 degree increase, 95 percent of all life was eradicated. The Kyoto protocol did not impose greenhouse gas emissions from such developing countries like China and India. And the US never signed up.
Human trafficking will increase as immigration through forced circumstance compound the already tough living conditions of the world’s poorest. Land will dry up and more will go hungry. Already, over 1 billion people go hungry; the most in recorded history. The World Health Organization estimates that 150,000 people perish every year because of changes in climate.
What to do? Today, the World Bank released a document of the 12 countries most afflicted by climate change. Not surprisingly, four of the world’s poorest nations top that list. The lack of basic infrastructure compounded by corruption and free market exploits (see global financial crisis for example) by developed nations has left the poor without any protection and worse off. The World Bank then identified six climate change risks: flooding, drought, storms, coastal deterioration, and agriculture.
In December, nations will gather in Copenhagen to discuss what can be done to reduce the impact of global warming under the guise of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change(UNFCCC). The 2005 Kyoto Protocol ends in just three years and given the dismal track record of most signatories, it just seems unlikely that those who live in the poorest of nations will stand to see any benefits in the near future.
In a report (pdf) released this March by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, mechanisms to measure global climate remain ambiguous. If nations cannot agree on how to quantify climate change, then reducing its impact will be a difficult endeavour.
