Disease spread by global warming could kill an extra 185 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa by the end of the century and turn millions more into refugees unless rich nations take action now, a report said Monday, writes the World Bank press review.
The British charity Christian Aid, said rich developed countries had to end their dependence on fossil fuels and set aside large sums of aid to help poorer nations ride out the worst impacts of global warming and switch to energy sources like wind, solar and waves.
“Rich countries must take responsibility for having largely created this problem – and cut CO2 emissions radically”, the non-governmental organization said in a report “The Climate of Poverty: facts, fears and hopes”.
The warmer and wetter conditions largely predicted for the tropics under climate change scenarios will make diseases such as malaria, dengue (dengue-feber – tropesygdom), cholera and Rift Valley fever more prevalent and could spread them to higher ground.
The advantages of moving away from oil, says the group, is that it will not only reduce pressure on climate change, but will allow poor countries to leapfrog (gøre et tigerspring) to a cleaner future. This will save money that can be spent on health and education.
If high oil prices continue, the report says, the poorest countries may have to spend three times as much money on oil as they do now within 10 years. This, says Christian Aid, could throw into reverse recent gains in reducing poverty.
Oil, which has fuelled rapid growth in some developing countries, often with disastrous results, accounts for roughly 63 percent of the energy used in Africa.
– If the high oil price becomes a reality, billions of extra dollars will go to oil companies rather than be spent on things that really matter to poor people, like education and health, said John McGhie, the reports author.
Christian Aid is calling on the British government to carry out a number of tasks, including cutting carbon emissions by two thirds of 1990 levels by 2050. It also wants the government to help establish and fund programs to provide renewable energy to poor communities.
“A switch by Sub-Saharan Africa away from development based on fossil fuels to one using energy sources like solar, wind and water, for instance, would not only be better for the environment but could also result in increased jobs, better health and enhanced opportunities for learning”, the report said.
“For less money than it would take to pay the regions oil bill for the next decade, every household in Africa could change to clean, renewable energy. Developing technology could even transform the worlds most impoverished continent into a net exporter of clean energy”, the report added.
The report noted, there are signs in Tanzania and Rwanda that rising temperatures in highland areas have enabled malaria-carrying mosquitoes to spread in regions in which they have previously been unable to survive.
The report further says that the effects of climate change can already be seen in East Africa, where 11 million people have been faced with an unprecedented drought.
Meanwhile, in a commentary published in The Independent, Vice Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Richard Odingo writes that “… there is now a clear realization … that the human suffering linked to climate change will make it impossible to tackle world poverty … This is why we need a ninth Millennium Development Goal, specifically addressing climate change, as a matter of extreme urgency”.
Reducing poverty globally, Odingo writes, “means facing the climate challenge. It will not be solved by debt relief or token financial transfers. It will require a true shift in policy. It requires a determined effort to empower rural communities”
“Put at its most simple, there is no point in giving a family a sack of food every time a drought wipes out its crops – that is just not sustainable. The only way to make sure they can feed themselves, without continual charity handouts, is to reverse the climate change that is turning their land into desert”, he concludes.
Kilde: www.worldbank.org
