Government to spur research into climate impact on poor

Reuters - Wednesday, February 6 02:34 pm
LONDON (Reuters) - The government will increase research into the possible impacts of climate change on the world's most vulnerable people, including deeper poverty and conflict, the international development minister said.
Secretary of State Douglas Alexander said his department will spend 20 million pounds a year over the next five years, a tenfold increase, to pinpoint where global warming will hit hardest and show how to proof development against more extreme weather and rising seas.
"Climate change is a defining global social justice issue," Alexander said on Wednesday.
Droughts and heatwaves from Kenya to Australia and southern Europe have been blamed on global warming which is happening already. Six of the first seven years this century were among the seven hottest since reliable records began in 1850, says the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO).
Poor countries will be hit hardest because they have the least resources to cope when crops fail or storms wreak havoc.
Rich countries' efforts to help developing nations are not entirely altruistic, as concern rises that climate change may trigger more conflict, for example over water, and migration.
"By the middle of this century there could be as many as 200 million people forced from their homes because of rising sea levels, heavier floods and more intense droughts. Where will they go?" said Alexander.
"If today's image of climate change is the polar bear tomorrow's could be the AK47."
The extra funding announced on Wednesday was separate from 800 million pounds that Britain last year pledged to support developing countries' fight against climate change, through a World Bank fund expected to be detailed at the Group of Eight leaders' summit in Japan in July.
Japan presented a $10 billion (5.1 billion pound) package last month to help emerging countries tackle climate change.
The United States said in January it would commit $2 billion over the next three years to promote clean energy technologies and help developing nations fight climate change.
(Reporting by Gerard Wynn, Editing by Matthew Jones)

Bush's climate talks 'engaging'

By Roger Harrabin Environment Analyst, BBC News

The latest US-led climate talks in Honolulu, Hawaii, have been described by delegates as the most frank and engaging climate negotiations so far.
It was the second in a series of Major Economies Meetings called by US President George W Bush.
He called the first in Washington last year after expressing a desire to find a solution to the climate issue.
That first meeting was described by angry EU delegates as a waste of time, a PR stunt for the American elections.
But this time the tone was very different.
One EU delegate said: "I came expecting nothing and was very pleasantly surprised. Normally, we get sterile pre-prepared statements of policy, but this time there was a very frank discussion exploring the very difficult and different conditions facing each of the countries. It was very constructive."
Brice Lalonde, the French climate ambassador, added: "It was very low-key but people just got on with it. The talks were very positive… until the final statement was discussed."
At that point, he said, Russia and India refused to include a statement that they had been discussing mandatory, internationally binding commitments, even though that is exactly what had been discussed.
A number of delegates offered a degree of optimism that the big economies might this year agree a global target for cutting emissions by 2050.
Issues aired
The US is said to be moving slowly towards a figure, but India is holding out because a long-term global target implies emissions cuts for them. They feel that with per capita emissions a twentieth of the Americans, it is unfair to expect them to reduce emissions overall.
Part of the idea of the meetings is to air issues like this.
EU delegates said that for the world to achieve any serious long-term target on CO2, new technologies would be needed that would benefit India as much as America.
The US offered at the talks to commit its national energy policies to a UN-shared agreement if all major economies agreed to do the same.
The Europeans said any American commitment that did not include a firm pledge to actually cut greenhouse gases (rather than increase energy efficiency) was inadequate.
Boyden Gray, the US envoy to the EU who was present in Honolulu, said he believed that the progress made in the recent UN climate talks in Bali and now in Honolulu, meant the world looked to be on track for a comprehensive global agreement on climate by the end of 2009.