NGO: Klimaforandringer er årsag til fattigdom, ulighed og konflikt

Hedebølge i Californien. Verdens klimakrise har enorme sundhedsmæssige konsekvenser. Alligevel samtænkes Danmarks globale klima- og sundhedsindsats i alt for ringe grad, mener tre  debattører.


Foto: Kevin Carter/Getty Images
Forfatter billede

Og dette vil i sidste ende ramme os alle. Det var beskeden fra Climate Action Network til FN’s Sikkerhedsråd på et særligt møde. De anbefaler regeringer at investere i klimatilpasning for at afbøde de negative konsekvenser.

NEW YORK, February 15, 2013: Climate Action Network-International (CAN-International) today warned a special event for United Nations Security Council members at the UN headquarters in New York that climate change was a critical driver of poverty, inequality, instability, and conflict which would ultimately affect us all, writes Climate Action Network Friday.

Wael Hmaidan, director of CAN-International, told the meeting, convened by Pakistan and the United Kingdom, that the situation demanded an unprecedented commitment to collective action to drastically reduce these climate-driven risks which were already being experienced, first and foremost, by the poorest and most vulnerable within our societies.

“We are gravely concerned by the prospects for mass displacement of people within States and across borders driven directly by climate impacts like sea level rise, droughts, desertification, biodiversity loss and indirectly by its impacts on food and natural resources,” Hmaidan said.

“We recognise that the decision to leave one’s home and community is often the result of multiple factors, but that climate change impacts are often a critical driver, he said.

For example, the thousands of people who were displaced from Somalia into neighbouring countries in 2011 were not primarily fleeing conflict, but in search of food in the wake of drought.

Tim Gore, from Oxfam International, also present at the event, said that nowhere can this climate risk be more clearly seen than in the global food system.

“Droughts or floods can wipe out entire harvests, as we have seen in recent years in Pakistan, in the Horn of Africa and across the Sahel. And when extreme weather hits major world food producers – like last year’s droughts in the US and Russia – world food prices rocket. This presents a major risk to net food importing countries, such as Yemen, which ships in 90% of its wheat,” Gore said.

Læs mere her: http://www.climatenetwork.org/press-release/civil-society-warns-un-security-council-climate-change-driver-conflict-hunger-and-pove

Begynd ved: “The food riots and the social unrest…”