Wezi Tjaronda
3 June 2009
More than 300 000 people are killed due to climate change every year, a new report on the human impact of climate change has said.
The findings also indicate that climate change affects 325 million people seriously and also results in losses of US$125 billion to the global economy. In addition, four billion people are left vulnerable with 500 million others at extreme risk.
These figures represent averages based on projected trends over many years and carry a significant margin of error. The real numbers could be lower or higher.
The report the 'Human Impact Report: Climate Change - The Anatomy of a Silent Crisis' is the first ever-comprehensive report looking at the human impact of climate change.
The report says over the past five years, this toll has gone as high as US$230 billion, with several years around a U$100 billion and single year around U$50 billion.
"Such disasters have increased in frequency and severity over the past 30 years in part due to climate change," the report says and adds that over and above these costs are impacts on health, water supply and other shocks not taken into account.
Although it is expected that critics would say that the worst years are not representative and they may not be, scientists expect that years like these will be repeated more often in the near future.
Global Humanitarian Forum's President Kofi Annan launched the report at the Foreign Press Association in London on 29 May.
The report is deemed the first consolidated volume, which focuses on the adverse impacts of climate change on the human society across the world, based on the latest information and inputs from world-leading scientists on the human impact of climate change.
The report says human activities, including in particular emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide are recognised as its principle cause, while clearly showing that climate change is already causing widespread devastation and suffering around the planet today.
It says even if the international community is able to contain climate change, human society should prepare for more severe climate change and more dangerous human impacts over the next decades.
The report documents the full impact of climate change on human society worldwide today covering in specific detail the most critical areas of the global impact of climate change, namely on food, health, poverty, water, human displacement, and security.
It also highlights the massive socio-economic implications of those impacts on especially the world's poorest groups, who cannot be held responsible for the problem.
It also examines how sustainable development and the Millennium Development Goals are in serious danger, the pressures this will exert on humanitarian assistance, and the great need to integrate efforts in adapting to climate change.
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