Veronica Smith (AFP) Google News 19 Jun 13;
WASHINGTON — The World Bank on Wednesday warned that severe hardships from global warming could be felt within a generation, with a new study detailing devastating impacts in Africa and Asia.
The report presents "an alarming scenario for the days and years ahead -- what we could face in our lifetime," said World Bank President Jim Yong Kim.
"The scientists tell us that if the world warms by two degrees Centigrade (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) -- warming which may be reached in 20 to 30 years -- that will cause widespread food shortages, unprecedented heat waves, and more intense cyclones," he said in a statement.
An update of the Bank's November "Turn Down the Heat" climate report, the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Climate said there was evidence in the past seven months that previous projections for greenhouse gas emissions had been too low.
Now, it said, there was a growing chance that warming will reach or exceed four degrees Celsius in this century "in the absence of near-term actions and further commitments to reduce emissions."
The United Nations has proposed the goal of limiting global warming to two degrees Celsius from pre-industrial levels, setting for the first time measurable targets to curb greenhouse-gas emissions.
International negotiations are aimed at reaching an agreement on that limit by 2015, with the pact due to take effect by 2020.
In the report, commissioned by the World Bank, scientists from around the world focused on the risks of climate change to development in Sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia and South Asia, home to some of the world's poorest people.
They looked at the likely impacts from varying degrees of global warming in a range of areas, including agriculture, water resources, coastal erosion and vulnerability to flooding.
The report noted that the current level of warming -- 0.8 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial levels of the 18th century -- already had increased drought in Sub-Saharan Africa and coastal erosion in Southeast Asia.
The impact of two-degree warming, expected by the 2040s, would have grave and sweeping consequences, it said.
Unusual and unprecedented heat extremes would hammer the three regions, cutting crop production and causing widespread food shortages.
Many regions would see 20 percent declines in water availability and, for South Asia, disturbances in the monsoon could put water and food resources "at severe risk."
Rachel Kyte, World Bank vice president for sustainable development, said the development lender has been working with some of the world's burgeoning cities to mitigate the risks of global warming, for example helping Manila and Ho Chi Minh City on flood mitigation.
She said the Bank was looking at a major initiative preparing cities to absorb investment for infrastructure projects that will help them deal with the impact of global warming, such as flood protection, and the report, by detailing risks, should encourage much-needed private investment.
"When the investment community understands risks, then they always flip that into an opportunity in terms of investment vehicles," she said in a conference call.
Kyte said there was "a fundamental shift" in thinking at the World Bank that has put climate change at the heart of its development strategy.
The World Bank doubled its investment in climate adjustment to $4.6 billion in fiscal year 2012 ending June 30 from $2.3 billion the prior year, she said.
The report stressed that the risks were rising and a solution urgent, but there was a chance to avoid the worst of the crisis.
"It is not too late to hold warming near two degrees Celsius, and build resilience to temperatures and other climate impacts that are expected to still pose significant risks to agriculture, water resources, coastal infrastructure, and human health," the report said.
"The window for holding warming below two degrees Celsius and avoiding a four degrees Celsius world is closing rapidly, and the time to act is now."
Oxfam welcomed the report but said the World Bank "must ensure its own lending meets the needs of the people who are most vulnerable to climate change."
Greenpeace pushed for the World Bank to stop funding fossil-fuels projects, which add to global warming.
"Bold action is needed from all governments, and the World Bank must lead the way by shifting all its energy financing from fossil fuels to renewables and energy efficiency," it said.
Billions for Asia to avoid flooding
World Bank will help cities on climate crisis front line
Straits Times 20 Jun 13;
WASHINGTON - The World Bank is committing billions of dollars to flood prevention, water management and other projects to help major Asian cities avoid the expected impact of climate change, and says it will view its efforts to help developing countries fight poverty through a "climate lens".
Places such as Bangkok, Jakarta and Ho Chi Minh City are now considered "hot spots" that will bear the brunt of the impact as sea levels rise, tropical storms become more violent, and rainfall becomes both more sporadic and, in the rainy season, more intense.
Bank officials said this week that those effects are not considered a distant risk anymore, but rather are a near certainty "in our planning period" of the next 20 years or so.
In a study released yesterday, the bank, for example, projected that major portions of Bangkok would be flooded by 2030.
A flood control system built for Ho Chi Minh City only a decade ago is now considered inadequate and needs a US$2billion (S$2.5billion) overhaul, said Ms Rachel Kyte, the bank's vice-president for the environment and sustainable development.
The system "was built for a scenario that no longer exists", she said. "The investment they made is obsolete" for the sea level rise projected in coming years - 0.15m by 2030 under current projections, and double that a decade later.
In the report, the international lending institution warned that the impact of climate change would trap millions of people in poverty.
Thus, the Washington-based bank said it is stepping up support for efforts to curb climate change and to help the world adapt to it.
"Urgent action is needed not only to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but also to help countries prepare for a world of dramatic climate change and weather extremes," World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said in a statement.
Already by the 2030s, apart from the threat of rising sea waters in Asia, 40 per cent of the land used to grow maize in sub-Saharan Africa will be unable to sustain that crop because of droughts and heat, the report said.
"At the World Bank Group, we are concerned that unless the world takes bold action now, a disastrously warming planet threatens to put prosperity out of reach of millions and roll back decades of development," Mr Kim said.
"In response, we are stepping up our mitigation, adaptation and disaster risk management work, and will increasingly look at all our business through a 'climate lens'."
In a conference call, Ms Kyte said the World Bank had doubled its lending aimed at adaptation efforts to US$4.6 billion last year.
She said that money was separate from the adaptation funds transferred from rich to poor states in United Nations climate talks. The developed countries have pledged to ramp that financing up to US$100 billion annually by 2020.
Critics say that will not be enough, pointing to New York's recently announced US$20 billion plan - for that city alone - to stave off rising seas with flood gates, levees and other defences.
The World Bank also loaned US$7.1 billion to countries last year in projects that could help mitigate climate change.
Aid groups and climate activists welcomed the report, which was launched in London and prepared for the World Bank by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Climate Analytics, both based in Germany.
"The World Bank must go beyond ringing the alarm bell," said Mr Sasanka Thilakasiri of British charity Oxfam. "It must ensure its own lending meets the needs of the people who are most vulnerable to climate change."
WASHINGTON POST, ASSOCIATED PRESS
World's poorest will feel brunt of climate change, warns World Bank
Droughts, floods, sea-level rises and fiercer storms likely to undermine progress in developing world and hit food supply
Fiona Harvey guardian.co.uk 19 Jun 13;
Millions of people around the world are likely to be pushed back into poverty because climate change is undermining economic development in poor countries, the World Bank has warned.
Droughts, floods, heatwaves, sea-level rises and fiercer storms are likely to accompany increasing global warming and will cause severe hardship in areas that are already poor or were emerging from poverty, the bank said in a report.
Food shortages will be among the first consequences within just two decades, along with damage to cities from fiercer storms and migration as people try to escape the effects.
In sub-Saharan Africa, increasing droughts and excessive heat are likely to mean that within about 20 years the staple crop maize will no longer thrive in about 40% of current farmland. In other parts of the region rising temperatures will kill or degrade swaths of the savanna used to graze livestock, according to the report, Turn down the heat: climate extremes, regional impacts and the case for resilience.
In south-east Asia, events such as the devastating floods in Pakistan in 2010, which affected 20 million people, could become commonplace, while changes to the monsoon could bring severe hardship to Indian farmers.
Warming of at least 2C (36F) – regarded by scientists as the limit of safety beyond which changes to the climate are likely to become catastrophic and irreversible – is all but inevitable on current levels, and the efforts of governments are limited to trying to prevent temperature rises passing over this threshold. But many parts of the world are already experiencing severe challenges as a result of climate change, according to the World Bank, and this will intensify as temperatures rise.
Jim Yong Kim, the bank's president, warned that climate change should not be seen as a future problem that could be put off: "The scientists tell us that if the world warms by 2C – warming which may be reached in 20 to 30 years – that will cause widespread food shortages, unprecedented heatwaves, and more intense cyclones.
"In the near-term, climate change – which is already unfolding – could batter the slums even more and greatly harm the lives and hopes of individuals and families who have had little hand in raising the Earth's temperature."
The development bank is stepping up its funding for countries to adapt to the effects of climate change, and is calling for rich countries to make greater efforts at cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
Rachel Kyte, vice president of the World Bank, said it had doubled its aid for adaptation from $2.3bn (£1.47bn) in 2011 to $4.6bn last year, and called for a further doubling. She said the bank was working to tie its disaster aid and climate change adaptation funding closer together.
Aid from the bank to help poor countries cut their greenhouse gas emissions and pursue environmentally sustainable economic development stands at about $7bn a year, and is backed by about $20bn from regional development banks and other partners.
The report's authors used the latest climate science to examine the likely effects of global warming of 2C to 4C on agriculture, water resources, coastal ecosystems and fisheries, and cities, across sub-Saharan Africa, south and south-east Asia.
Kyte said the effects would be to magnify the problems that developing regions experience. More people would be pushed into slums, with an increased risk of disease. "We are looking at major new initiatives [in] cities; cities need billions of investment in infrastructure, but many developing cities are not really creditworthy," she said.
She pointed to Jakarta, where rising sea levels and decades of pumping freshwater from underground sources beneath and around the city were increasing its vulnerability to flooding. Choices would need to be made soon in many cities on how to stem the likely effects, but Kyte warned that the plans must be future-proof, citing Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam, which has been forced to rethink its flood preparations despite spending $2bn on them.
Green campaigners emphasised the need to try to avoid 2C of warming, which scientists stay is possible if countries bolster their ambitions to cut greenhouse gas ambitions in the near future.
Stephanie Tunmore, climate campaigner at Greenpeace International, said: "Fossil fuels are being extracted in burned in the name of development and prosperity, but what they are delivering is the opposite.
"Some major impacts from climate change are already unavoidable and rich countries must urgently support the poor and vulnerable to adapt. But massive increases in the future costs of adaptation and damage can only be avoided by investing in a clean energy future now."
The World Bank has come under fire in the past for funding coal-fired power plants in some developing countries. However, it said the move was the result of old policies and was being phased out.
