CLIMATE CHANGE

'If we really felt that people in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Tuvalu and elsewhere were fully human, we'd never fly again'. Merrick Godhaven, Down to Earth

Click on the map for a better quality image

Some Facts and Figures from Christian Aid

At the current rate of carbon emissions, global average temperatures will rise 2°C by 2050 according to research by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Most experts agree that this increase is already signed, sealed and ready for delivery. Expected consequences include:

• The creation of 150 million environmental refugees – overwhelmingly in poor countries
• Acute water shortages for 1-3 billion people
• 30 million more people going hungry as agricultural yields go into recession across the globe
• Sea levels edging towards increases of up to 95cm by the end of the century, submerging 18% of Bangladesh.
• Warmer, wetter weather will see malaria, which currently kills up to 3 million people a year, spread to new territories – there is evidence that it has already encroached into previously cool highland areas of Rwanda and Tanzania.
• Christian Aid research, based on scientific predictions, reveals that 182 million people in sub-Saharan Africa alone could die of disease directly attributable to climate change by the end of the century.
• The UK’s Department for International Development predicts that the number of Africans at risk of coastal flooding will rise from 1 million in 1990 to 70 million by 2080.
• In Bangladesh, flood damage has become more extreme in the last 20 years. By 2100, predicted ocean rises threaten to submerge 18% of the country, creating 35 million environmental refugees.
• In east Africa, 11 million people were put at risk of hunger by years of unprecedented drought.

Climatic changes already are estimated to cause over 150,000 deaths annually. (WHO)

Tip of the iceberg. See the rest of it before it melts away completely here.

See nuggets on climate change here.