Global climate efforts ‘woeful’
28/8/2006 BBC Efforts to help developing nations adapt to the impacts of climate change have been called “woefully inadequate” by a UN-commissioned Rich countries have focused on ways to reduce carbon emissions but have largely ignored helping poor nations cope with the consequences, it says. The findings appear in the UNDP’s Human Development Report 2006. The authors say farmers whose crops are reliant on rainfall are already having to cope with unpredictable weather. The report, called Beyond Scarcity: Power, Poverty and the Global Water Crisis, says climate change “now poses what may be an unparalleled threat to human development”. The adaptation agenda is somewhere between embryonic and heavily under-developed. Kevin Watkins, Report’s lead author. Lead author Kevin Watkins said people living in vulnerable conditions were already having to adapt. ”There is a lot of evidence that the droughts in the Horn of Africa this year are connected to climate change,” he told reporters. “This is not an issue for 50 years down the road, it is an issue for today.” Mr Watkins added that the worst affected areas were regions with very limited water infrastructures, such as Sub-Saharan Africa. ….United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) published a report that described global warming as a serious threat to Africa. It listed a series of reasons why measures to help African countries ”climate-proof” their societies, economies and infrastructure was widely seen as vital.