A U.N. report released today says that the world has less than two decades to reverse the trend of growing greenhouse gas emissions in order to avert massive human and economic setbacks, as well as ecological disasters.
The U.N. Human Development Report calls for swift and collective action, putting even greater pressure on world leaders to lay the foundations of a successful initiative to combat global warming at the U.N. Climate Conference in Bali, Indonesia next month.
The report states that the world’s poorest, citizens of developing nations, will suffer the most from climate change creating “life-long cycles of disadvantage.” According to the report climate disasters between 2000 and 2004 affected 262 million people, 98% of whom live in developing nations.
Even if nations worldwide begin cutting greenhouse gases immediately, global temperatures will rise through 2050 due to accumulated carbon emissions, the report says, and greater flooding, drought and famine resulting from higher temperatures will be hardest on those who cannot rely on public investment.
“We could be on the verge of seeing human development reverse for the first time in 30 years,” Kevin Watkins, lead author of the report, said in a Reuters interview. The U.N. Human Development Report suggests a road map for restricting global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius, the level under which scientist believe the worst effects of global warming can be avoided.
It also calls for the world’s richest nations to fund massive initiatives to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, the most prevalent greenhouse gas. Collectively the world should spend 1.6% of global economic output each year through 2030, in order to stabilize atmospheric carbon levels, the report says.
The report sets a target for rich nations–the heaviest polluters–to cut emissions at least 30% by 2020 and and 80 percent by 2050, while calling for developing nations to cut emissions 20% by 2050.
The UNDP report is being released in Brasilia today, following the release of a separate report by the World Meteorological Organization in Geneva yesterday, which states the earth’s atmosphere reached record high levels of greenhouse gases in 2006.
According to the U.N. weather agency carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitrous oxide levels were at an all time high, with CO2 accounting for a greater percentage (91%) of greenhouse gases, than it did five years ago (87%).
The agency report said the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere rose by about half a percent last year to reach 381.2 parts per million, and nitrous oxide rose to 320.1 parts per billion, a quarter percent higher than in 2005.
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