Global warming 'to hit Africa hardest'

[Pastor Dale Morgan]

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Perilous Times and Global Warming

Global warming 'to hit Africa hardest'*

From correspondents in Pretoria

September 06, 2007 04:23am
Article from: Reuters

AFRICA will suffer the most if the world fails to reduce global warming,
with parts of the impoverished continent becoming uncultivable or
uninhabitable, top British government scientists said overnight.

In a presentation in Pretoria, David King, the British government's
chief scientific adviser, warned climate change, if unchecked, would
lead to worsening drought in Africa and to flooding along much of its
coastline.

He said an additional 70 million Africans could be at risk of hunger by
the 2080s as a result of continued global warming - temperatures in
Africa have risen by about 0.7 degrees celsius during the last century.

"This is the continent that will come under the most severe pressure
from climate change," Mr King said.

Gordon Conway, the chief scientific adviser for Britain's department for
international development, said the current trend in Africa's climate
was characterised by polarised change.

"It's going to get wetter and drier," Mr Conway said.

They urged Africa to make climate change a top priority and the
international community to do a better job of sharing technology and
skills with what they described as a key battleground in the global
warming debate.

Britain has taken a leading role in pushing for a global agreement by
2009 to cut carbon dioxide emissions, the so-called greenhouse gases
that are the biggest contributor to the warming of the planet.

Although consensus is building on the need for action, the United States
and China, the top two emitters, are among those that have expressed
reservations about how a global agreement would be implemented.

US President George W. Bush agreed at the Group of Eight summit in June
that substantial cuts in greenhouse gas emissions were warranted but
stopped short of defining what the United States considered an
appropriate reduction.

The European Union, Japan and Canada have all talked about a need to
halve world emissions by 2050 to slow warming.

"We have managed to push the point along, but without American
leadership it is going to be a struggle," Mr King said.

There is growing support for the "Bali road map", a two-year plan agreed
in Indonesia that aims to follow up on the United Nations' Kyoto
Protocol, which obliges 35 industrial nations to cut emissions by five
per cent below 1990 levels by 2008-2012.

Among the proposals likely to spark intense debate is one by developing
nations with large areas of forest to have wealthy nations that have
contributed the most to climate change compensate them for keeping their
forests intact.