Climate change could bring unprecedented reversals in poverty reduction, nutrition, health and education. Fighting climate change: Human solidarity in a divided world, the 2007 Human Development report from the UN, argues that the world is drifting towards a "tipping point" that could lock the world's poorest countries 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," said UNDP Administrator Kemal Dervi. "But it is the poor, a constituency with no responsibility for the ecological debt we are running up, who face the immediate and most severe human costs."

The report, arriving as negotiations continue on forging a multilateral agreement post-Kyoto, calls for a 'twin track' approach. This would combine stringent 'mitigation' to limit 21st Century warming to less than 2°C (3.6°F), with strengthened international co-operation on 'adaptation'. On mitigation, the authors call on developed countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions by at least 80% of 1990 levels by 2050.

It advocates a mix of carbon taxation, more stringent cap-and-trade programmes, energy regulation, and international co-operation on financing for low-carbon technology transfer. On adaptation, the report warns that inequalities in ability to cope with climate change are emerging as an increasingly powerful driver of wider inequalities between and within countries. It says rich countries must put climate change adaptation at the centre of international partnerships on poverty reduction.

"We are issuing a call to action, not providing a counsel of despair," said lead author Kevin Watkins. "Allowing the window of opportunity to close would represent a moral and political failure without precedent in human history."

The report provides evidence of how the ecological effects of climate change will be transmitted to the poor. For the 2.6 billion people surviving on less than $2 a day, forces unleashed by global warming could reverse progress built up over generations. The report catalogues a series of threats to human development.

Agricultural systems may break down as a result of increased exposure to drought; rising temperatures, and more erratic rainfall, leaving up to 600 million more people facing malnutrition. Semi-arid areas of sub-Saharan Africa with some of the highest concentrations of poverty in the world face the danger of productivity losses of 26% by 2060.

An additional 1.8 billion people could experience water stress by 2080, with large areas of South Asia and northern China facing a grave ecological crisis as a result of glacial retreat and changed rainfall patterns.Up to 332 million people in coastal and low-lying areas could be displaced through flooding and tropical storms. Over 70 million Bangladeshis, 22 million Vietnamese, and six million Egyptians could be affected by global warming-related flooding.

The report argues that climate shocks such as droughts, floods and storms, which will become more frequent and intense with climate change, are already among the most powerful causes of poverty and inequality – and global warming will make this worse.

Apart from threatening lives and inflicting suffering, these catastrophic events wipe out assets, lead to malnutrition, and result in children being withdrawn from school. In Ethiopia, the report finds that children exposed to a drought in early childhood are 36% more likely to be malnourished – a figure that translates into 2 million additional cases of child malnutrition.

"Fighting climate change is about our commitment to human development today and about creating a world that will provide ecological security for our children and their grandchildren," said Mr Dervi.

More information
www.undp.org