This week the UNDP released its Human Development Report in BrasÃlia. It shows how two of the world’s biggest problems, which can eventually evolve into catastrophes, are actually deeply enmeshed in each other and that they need an integrated political approach.
Brasilia, 27 November 2007—With governments preparing to gather in Bali, Indonesia to discuss the future of the Kyoto Protocol, the United Nations Development Programme’s Human Development Report has warned that the world should focus on the development impact of climate change that could bring unprecedented reversals in
poverty reduction, nutrition, health and education.
The report, Fighting climate change: Human solidarity in a divided world, provides a stark account of the threat posed by global warming. It argues that the world is drifting towards a “tipping point†that could lock the world’s poorest countries and their poorest citizens in a downward spiral, leaving hundreds of millions facing malnutrition, water scarcity, ecological threats, and a loss of livelihoods.
“Ultimately, climate change is a threat to humanity as a whole. But it is the poor, a constituency with no esponsibility for the ecological debt we are running up, who face the immediate and most severe human costs,†commented UNDP Administrator Kemal Derviş.
The report comes at a key moment in negotiations to forge a multilateral agreement for the period after 2012—the expiry date for the current commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol. It calls for a “twin track†approach that combines stringent mitigation to limit 21st Century warming to less than 2°C
(3.6°F), with strengthened international cooperation on adaptation.
Read more on the UNDP website, download the full report, a summary or the press release…
…Or read the articles in other media: NY Times, or one of its interesting blogs on the climate change & development debate: Dot Earth. Another recent article in the NY Times focuses on how human effects of climate change (and reversed) corresponds with an unequal world.
OneWorld (in Dutch), has published an interesting background article about the stratification that will follow as environment policies are being adopted, or pushed into developing countries. Read the article here…
Oxfam published its own report on the links between poverty reduction and climate, “Climate Alarm,” with special focus on the impact of natural disasters. The report can be read and downloaded here…
Drought in Tanzania. Photo by Erik Kolstad.
Children in the flooded water, in the aftermath of the Sidr Cyclone, Bangladesh. November 2007. Photo by Tipu Kibria.
Food relief in the aftermath of the Bangladeshi Flood, november 2007. Photo by Peter Casier (himself a relief worker)
