Climate change will hit least polluting countries hardest
Ian Sample, science correspondentThursday November 17, 2005
The Guardian
The world's poorest countries face a dramatic rise in deaths from disease and malnutrition as a direct result of climate change driven by wealthier, more polluting countries, scientists say today.
The researchers reached the conclusion after constructing a map showing how climate change will affect different regions of the world by making infectious diseases more rampant and damaging local agriculture.
The picture that emerges shows the least wealthy countries with the lowest greenhouse gas emissions as the most vulnerable. They can expect a doubling of deaths from malaria, diarrhoeal diseases and malnutrition by 2030 as a result of climate change.
In a previous study, the World Health Organisation said climate change caused by industrial emissions already accounts for at least 5 million cases of illness and more than 150,000 deaths each year.
The scientists, whose research is published in Nature today, created the map by collating published studies linking disease and agriculture to temperature and weather variations.
One study showed that in certain South American countries, a 1C rise in temperature caused an 8% increase in diarrhoeal diseases. "The map shows that the health impact of climate change disproportionately affects poorer countries that in my view have no responsibility for global warming. It's completely unethical and it cannot be ignored," said Jonathan Patz, the study's lead scientist at the University of Wisconsin.
Regions at highest risk included the coastlines of the Pacific and Indian oceans and sub-Saharan Africa.
The report says more resources to combat disease in poor countries combined with long-term cuts in greenhouse gas emissions are needed to limit the effects on poorer countries. Climate change exacerbates problems poor countries face from disease, largely because bacteria spread more rapidly, causing greater contamination of food and water.
Forecasts of climate change also predict more erratic weather patterns for many countries, wreaking havoc with subsistence farming and adding to the burden of malnutrition. The report comes two weeks before signatories of the Kyoto protocol meet in Montreal for the first time since it was ratified in February. The US, which emits 24% of the world's greenhouse gases, making it the world's most polluting country, has refused to sign up to Kyoto on the grounds that it would hamper financial growth.
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