Warming to bring drought, floods and hunger to Asia
Pastor Dale Morgan
Warming to bring drought, floods and hunger to Asia*
10 Apr 2007 11:36:02 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Nita Bhalla
NEW DELHI, April 10 (Reuters) - Food shortages, water scarcity,
heatwaves, floods and migration of millions of people will occur across
Asia as a result of climate change, Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the
U.N. climate panel, said on Tuesday.
Pachauri was speaking after Friday's release of a report on the impacts
of global warming by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC), which groups 2,500 scientists and is the world authority on
climate change.
According to the report's predictions, global warming would mean Asia
would get less rainfall, affecting agricultural production and leading
to food and water shortages.
"What we project is substantial decreases in cereal production in Asia
and... there will unfavourable impacts on rain-fed wheat in south and
southeast Asia," he told a news conference.
"There will be risk of hunger and water resource scarcity."
Pachauri, also the head of The Energy and Resources Institute, one of
India's leading environmental think-tanks, said half a degree Celsius
rise in winter temperatures would reduce wheat yields by 0.45 tonnes per
hectare.
The average wheat yield in India is currently 2.6 tonnes per hectare, he
added.
Hundreds of millions of people who rely on glacier melt from the
Himalayan Hindukush mountains for water supplies would also be affected,
he said, adding that a quarter of a billion people would suffer as a
result in China alone.
Pachauri said the impact in a country like India, where almost 70
percent of the workforce is dependent on agriculture, would be very
serious, with mass migration of rural communities to already
overburdened towns and cities.
"Given that they are not able to pursue their livelihoods, they clearly
would have no choice but to move into the large cities and towns," he
said. "That means greater slum populations with inadequate urban
infrastructure."
Rising sea levels could flood the homes of millions of people living in
low-lying areas of Asia such as Vietnam, Bangladesh, India and China,
said the report.
Sea levels will be about 40 cm higher than today by the end of the 21st
century and the annual number of people flooded in coastal areas will
increase from 13 million to 94 million in Asia.
About 60 million of these people will be in South Asia, along the coasts
from Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Myanmar, said Pachauri.
Coastal cities like Mumbai and Kolkata are extremely vulnerable, he
said, adding that they required better infrastructure such as drainage
systems to cope with floods and water supplies as much of their water
would become more saline.