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	Climate Changes already creating Hunger ahead of World Summit by Oxfam / OneWorld   October 2009   The rift between rich and poor countries has intensified because rich countries have not put serious money on the table to help poor countries adapt to the escalating impacts of climate change and develop on a low carbon pathway, international aid agency Oxfam said on the last day of UN climate negotiations in Bangkok.   Oxfam senior climate adviser Antonio Hill said a continued lack of political will from rich country leaders also meant there was no movement on the emissions reduction targets that would help safeguard billions of the world"s poorest from death and suffering.   "The millions of people facing greater floods, droughts and failed harvest after failed harvest will be the real losers if rich nations continue to act as blockers to the UN negotiations," Mr. Hill said.   He said the US in particular was becoming the biggest obstacle to a fair and safe global climate deal in Copenhagen.   "The US has been silent on the scale of finance it will commit to, and has yet to adopt an ambitious emissions reduction target by 2020."   He said the poorest, most vulnerable countries looking ahead to Copenhagen now face an impossible choice - to accept an agreement that fails to reduce the life-or-death risks they face, or to hold out for a safe and fair deal but risk walking away from Copenhagen empty-handed.   "It"s the US that needs to make the toughest choice in Copenhagen: does it join the rest of the world to strengthen and build on the Kyoto model of binding targets, or remain the odd one out?"   "It is useful that the US is prompting a debate on who does what under a global agreement, but if it really hopes to have a constructive dialogue with developing countries it has to up the ante first by tabling an offer of finance and emissions cuts commensurate with its historic emissions and economic weight," Mr Hill said.   "The US endorsement of a new fund for developing countries is an encouraging step forward, although big questions remain on how it will operate."   "If promised development aid increases are plundered for climate purposes, it could mean that 8.6 million fewer people have access to HIV and AIDS treatment, 75 million fewer children will be in school, and 4.5 million more children die than would otherwise be the case," he said.   Sept 2009   Climate Changes creating Hunger ahead of World Summit. (OneWorld)   Changing weather patterns have decimated crops in several of the world"s poorest countries this year, leaving millions in need of food aid and humanitarian workers warning about the dangerous effects of climate change.   Farmers in Nepal have been able to produce only half their usual crop, said an Oxfam International report released last week. Livestock are dying of malnutrition in Yemen, according to the humanitarian news service IRIN. And the Red Cross is bracing for the effects of heavy rains across 16 West and Central African nations.   All three are the result of extended atypical weather events - drought, rain, or untimely combinations of both - in places where subsistence farmers have long depended on predictability.   In Nepal, more than 3 million people - about 10 percent of the population - will need food aid this year, said Oxfam. While farmers used to grow enough food for their families to eat for three to six months of the year, last year"s crop only amounted to about one month"s worth of food for many families, said Oxfam.   The lack of food production has hit Nepali families with a double whammy, not only reducing the amount available to eat, but also diminishing their ability to buy surpluses at market, as costs have increased and incomes decreased.   A combination of natural disasters, including one of the worst winter droughts in the country"s history, have levied the current burden on the Himalayan Asian nation, where more than three in ten people live below the poverty line even in good times.   While Oxfam notes that a single drought event can never be attributed to global climate change, the group blames Nepal"s food shortage on the unpredictability of weather that scientists say is a direct result of the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere - or "climate change."   In recent years, Nepal has experienced greater extremes of temperature, more intense periods of rainfall, drier winters, and delays in the summer monsoon rains.   The mighty glaciers of the Himalayan mountain range are also rapidly changing and could even be at risk of disappearing by mid-century if global emissions of carbon dioxide and other pollutants are not reduced, according to the world"s most renowned climate scientists. The people of Nepal and its Asian neighbors downstream are extremely dependent on the rivers running off those glaciers to irrigate croplands and provide drinking water.   "The world has never faced such a predictably massive threat to food production as that posed by the melting mountain glaciers of Asia," says Lester Brown, one of the most respected researchers on how environmental factors impact humans worldwide.   China and India are the world"s leading producers of wheat and rice - humanity’s food staples. Significant decreases in their ability to produce those crops will send hunger shockwaves around the world, notes Brown, who is president of the Washington, DC-based Earth Policy Institute.   "The glaciologists have given us a clear sense of how fast glaciers are shrinking. The challenge now is to translate their findings into national energy policies designed to save the glaciers," he says. "At issue is not just the future of mountain glaciers, but the future of world grain harvests."   In addition to exacerbating food shortages, ice melt in Antarctica and Greenland could force hundreds of millions of people worldwide to seek refuge on higher ground. At the Earth"s poles, snow is melting, sea ice is breaking up, and temperatures are rising - all at faster rates than elsewhere on the planet - raising the likelihood of severe sea level rise.   Some refugees would remain within their own countries, while many others would flee to foreign countries, but both groups would impose heightened burdens on the local communities and national governments forced to support them as they build new lives from scratch.   Oxfam, whose aid workers are active in scores of countries worldwide, notes that poorer communities tend to be the least able to cope with weather-related disasters and the other effects of climate change. Ironically - and many say unfairly - they are also, by and large, the least responsible for causing climate change.   Nepal, for example, is one of the world"s poorest countries and extremely vulnerable to climate change, yet it emits only 0.025 percent of the world"s greenhouse gases. The United States, by comparison, is responsible for about 20 percent of the world"s greenhouse gas emissions, though Americans only make up about 5 percent of the world"s population.   "Oxfam is calling on the world"s richest countries, those most responsible for global emissions, to do more to help poor countries better adapt and mitigate the effects of climate change when they meet to discuss a global climate treaty in Copenhagen in December".   Sept 2009   ‘We are heading towards an Abyss. U.N. chief tells 150 governments that time running out on climate change. (AP)   U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon told a meeting of some 150 governments on Thursday that time is running out for a new climate deal to cut greenhouse gas emissions.   The Copenhagen talks in December are looming and little real negotiating time is left "to resolve some of the most complex issues," the U.N. secretary general told the World Climate Conference. "We need rapid progress."   Only limited progress in the climate talks has been made for the meeting to hammer out a new accord to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocols. Meanwhile, climate change is advancing.   "Our foot is stuck on the accelerator and we are heading towards an abyss," said Ban, warning that climate change could spell widespread economic disaster.   He noted that he had just visited the Arctic and was alarmed by what he saw. "The Arctic is warming faster than anywhere else on Earth," Ban said. "It may be ice-free by 2030."   Not only is the Arctic serving as a warning, the warming there is accelerating global climate change, he said. "Instead of reflecting heat, the Arctic is absorbing it as the sea ice diminishes, thus speeding up global warming," Ban said. "Methane, trapped in permafrost and on the sea bed, is escaping into the atmosphere. Methane is a greenhouse gas 20 times more powerful than carbon dioxide."   He said the increased melt from the Greenland ice-cap threatens to raise sea levels and alter the flow of the Gulf Stream, essential to keep Europe warm.   Help nations cope with climate devastation, says UN humanitarian chief.   "We are coming down to the wire, with less than 100 days left before the United Nations Climate Change Conference begins in Copenhagen on 7 December," said John Holmes, United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator.   Mr. Holmes, the global humanitarian chief, noted that climate change is now a major driver of disasters, with increasingly frequent and intense floods, storms and droughts affecting millions of people worldwide. Weather-related events are affecting or displacing more people year by year: more than 65 million people were affected by floods and storms in 2008, or one percent of the global population. This trend is expected to continue and accelerate if unchecked.   "Right now, people are dealing with high visibility disasters - such as Hurricane Jimena off Mexico, and Typhoon Morakot, which affected over three-quarters of a million households in Taiwan and left over 700 people dead or missing. But many overlook the less visible, but even more grave weather related crises, such as the severe droughts affecting Kenya and Ethiopia. In addition, after a poor start to the June-to-September monsoon season, more than one-third of India"s 625 administered districts have declared drought," Mr. Holmes warned.   Unless drastic reductions in global emissions are in place by 2020, major catastrophes involving floods, storms or water scarcity – combined with other factors such as population growth, urbanisation, food insecurity, environmental decline and poverty – may lead to major migration and forced displacement in many parts of the world. Such unprecedented population movements could overwhelm national governments and global disaster management systems, as well as planting the seeds of future conflicts.   "If it is challenging for humanitarians to cope in today"s circumstances, the future would be much more difficult. To avert or reduce the worst humanitarian consequences of climate change, we know what needs to be done, and we must do it. At Copenhagen, we must see an ambitious, fair and binding agreement that will not only cut global emissions but also help nations cope now with the harmful effects of climate change," Mr. Holmes concluded.
	New report on climate change projects tens of millions more malnourished children by 2050 by International Food Policy Research Institute   Oct. 2009   At least twenty five million more children will be starving by 2050 due to effects of climate change, according to a report by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). The study, the most comprehensive assessment of the impact of climate change on agriculture to date, compares the number of malnourished children in 2050 with and without climate change.   “This outcome could be averted with seven billion U.S. dollars per year of additional investments in agricultural productivity to help farmers to adapt to the effects of climate change. Investments are needed in agricultural research, improved irrigation, and rural roads to increase market access for poor farmers. Access to safe drinking water and education for girls is also essential,” said Gerald Nelson, IFPRI senior research fellow and report lead author.   The study, “Climate Change: Impact on Agriculture and Costs of Adaptation,” was prepared by IFPRI for inclusion in two separate reports from the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank, both released today in conjunction with international climate change meetings in Bangkok.   Without new technology and adjustments by farmers, climate change will reduce irrigated wheat yields in 2050 by around 30 percent in developing countries compared to a no-climate change scenario. Irrigated rice yields will fall by 15 percent.   Even without climate change, food prices will rise, but climate change makes the problems much worse. Without climate change, 2050 wheat prices will increase globally by almost 40 percent. With climate change, wheat prices will increase by 170 – 194 percent. Rice is projected to increase 60 percent without climate change, but it will go up 113 – 121 percent with climate change. 2050 maize prices will be more than 60 percent higher without climate change, but they will be 148 – 153 percent higher with climate change.   The study combined climate models that project changes in rainfall and temperature and a crop model to capture biophysical effects with IFPRI’s economic model of world agriculture.   The modeling does not include: the effects of increased variability in weather due to climate change; the loss of agricultural lands due to rising sea levels; climate change-induced increases in pests and diseases; increased variability in river flow as glaciers melt. All these factors would increase the damage of climate change to agriculture.   Developing countries will be hit hardest by climate change and will face much bigger declines in crop yields and production than industrialized countries, the study finds. The negative effects of climate change are especially pronounced in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Compared to the average biophysical effects of climate change on yields in the industrialized world, the developing countries fare worse for almost all crops.   “Agriculture is extremely vulnerable to climate change, because farming is so weather-dependent. Small-scale farmers in developing countries will suffer the most,” noted Mark Rosegrant, director of IFPRI’s Environment and Production Technology Division and report co-author. “However, our study finds that this scenario of lower yields, higher prices, and increased child malnutrition can be alleviated.”   In addition to increased funding for rural development, IFPRI recommends more open agricultural trade to ensure that food will reach the poorest populations in times of crises. “If governments and donors begin now to invest seriously in adaptation for poor farmers, we can significantly impact this bleak future,” said Rosegrant. Visit the related web page
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