ENVIRONMENT:
Climate Change Poses Bigger Threat to Developing Nations

Marcela Valente


BUENOS AIRES,  (IPS) - Climate change experts say global warming resulting from the accumulation of greenhouse gases will not have an equal impact on all countries, but will especially hurt the poorest nations, either in terms of direct effects or due to their more limited capacity to deal with the changes.

That was one of the main concerns discussed this month by 49 scientific researchers at an international meeting in Buenos Aires to debate the effects of climate change on the population, Argentine climatologist Osvaldo Canziani, who coordinated the conference, told IPS.

Canziani, one of the members of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), stressed that the dangerous effects of the increase in global temperatures would hit the developing world harder than industrialised nations.

He also pointed to the varying capacities of each country to deal with the same threats.

''A cholera epidemic exacerbated by global warming is more serious in a poor country than in a rich one, and the same hurricane does not produce the same disaster in a Caribbean island nation as in a city in the United States,'' he noted.

The meeting was held to analyse research from different disciplines on the impacts of global warming on crops, human health, biodiversity, pollution, flooding and drought.

According to Canziani, the aim was for the experts to contribute information and input to urge political leaders not only to work on curbing greenhouse gas emissions, but to also begin to take measures to prepare for and prevent disasters caused by sudden climatic phenomena like floods.

''Politicians, if they're smart, should take an interest in these issues,'' said Canziani, who co-chairs the climate change working group on 'Vulnerability, Impacts and Adaptation' set up by the IPCC, which advises governments on the implementation of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

At the May 18-20 meeting in the Argentine capital, the scientists focused on article two of the UNFCCC, which urges the parties to the convention to stabilise ''greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic (human induced) interference with the climate system.''

Stephen Schneider, Professor of Environmental Biology and Global Change at Stanford University in California, has studied the geographic distribution of impacts of climate change depending on region and social sectors, as well as the differing capacities to respond to drastic and unforeseen climatic phenomena.

Schneider pointed out that while industrialised nations are responsible for the majority of greenhouse gas emissions, it is poor nations that will experience the most severe climate change, while some rich countries in the northern hemisphere may even benefit from global warming.

For example, the climate will become milder in countries located at higher latitudes, leading to longer growing seasons, while famine and epidemics will be aggravated in nations of the developing South and crops will be hurt by the rise in temperature, he noted.

He also stressed that developing nations will be at a disadvantage when it comes to adapting to the new climate and mitigating harmful effects, due to financial as well as technological limitations, and in some cases serious political problems like armed conflicts.

Developing countries ''are not well equipped to deal with any catastrophe, much less sudden, unforeseen ones,'' and ''surprises could be devastating,'' said Schneider, noting that within those nations, socially marginalised groups are especially vulnerable.

U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) delegate Prabhu Pingali said studies on global warming indicate ''that on average, many industrialised countries stand to substantially gain in production potential, while many developing countries are expected to lose.''

''Climate change impacts on agriculture could increase the number of people at risk of hunger'', said Pingali, who added that in the developing world, more land will become arid, which will lead in the next few decades to the loss of land suitable for agriculture, especially the production of grains.

Ulisses Confalonieri, a Brazilian academic who specialises in the effects of climate change on human health, said one of the main public health concerns with respect to climate change is the growing appearance of tropical infectious diseases outside of the tropics.

Researchers have been finding more and more cases of illnesses like dengue fever and malaria in areas where the mosquitoes that carry the diseases were previously unable to survive because the temperatures were too low.