04:45 AM Nov 20, 2012
WASHINGTON – All nations will suffer the effects of a warmer world, but it is the world’s poorest countries that will be hit hardest by food shortages, rising sea levels, cyclones and drought, the World Bank said in a report on climate change.
Under new World Bank President Jim Yong Kim, the global development lender has launched a more aggressive stance to integrate climate change into development.
The report, called Turn Down the Heat, highlights the devastating impact of a world hotter by 4°C by the end of the century, a likely scenario under current policies.
Climate change is already having an effect: Arctic sea ice reached a record minimum in September, and extreme heat waves and drought in the last decade have hit places like the United States and Russia more often than would be expected.
Such extreme weather is likely to become the “new normal” if the temperature rises by 4°C, according to the report.
This is likely to happen if not all countries comply with pledges they have made to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
In this hotter climate, the level of the sea would rise by up to 0.9m, flooding cities in places like Vietnam and Bangladesh. Water scarcity and falling crop yields would exacerbate hunger and poverty.
Extreme heat waves would devastate broad swathes of the earth’s land, from the Middle East to the US, the report warned. Reuters
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