A
research from the World Health Organization reveals that climate change is
expected to cause approximately 250 000 additional deaths per year
between 2030 and 2050; 38 000 due to heat exposure in elderly people, 48 000
due to diarrhoea, 60 000 due to malaria, and 95 000 due to childhood under
nutrition.
Results indicate that the burden
of disease from climate change in the future will continue to fall mainly on
children in developing countries, but that other population groups will be
increasingly affected.
And already a new report by
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) shows that global
emissions of greenhouse gases have risen to unprecedented levels despite a
growing number of policies to reduce climate change.
IPCC is the international
body for assessing the science related to climate change.
It estimates suggest that
climate change is likely to have significant effects on cereal crop
productivity, potentially increasing the risk of under nutrition.
Projected increases in infectious
disease morbidity, especially for diarrhoea illness, would exacerbate climate
change effects on child nutrition.
In 2030, sub-Saharan Africa is
projected to have the greatest burden of mortality impacts attributable to
climate change.
By 2050, south Asia is projected
to be the region most affected by the health effects of climate change.
Climate change is thus accelerating and poses sweeping risks for
economic stability and the security of nations. Food security and the ecosystem
are challenged. We see people losing their habitat through natural disasters,
and other fighting over water.
While the world is confronting Ebola and terrorism as immediate cases,
we have to also come to terms with the fact that climate change has immediacy
with greater and longer- term consequences that can cost hundreds and billions
of people’s lives and security of the world.
Hence the need for effective action to confront the mounting threat of
climate change is now.
Actions taken so far
In light
of the threats of climate change, 193 heads of state and leaders from business,
finance and civil society met the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon, on Tuesday
23 September, 2014 for the United Nations Climate Summit to generate political
will towards emission reduction and build resilience to the impact of climate
change.
The UN Secretary-General Ban
Ki-moon, acknowledged that “Time is running out” and “the more we delay, the
more we will pay”
He agreed "Without significant cuts in emissions by all countries,
and in key sectors, the window of opportunity to stay with less than 2 degrees
will soon close forever”.
Ban Ki-moon added, “many leaders, from all regions and all levels of
economic development advocated for a peak in greenhouse gas emissions before
2020, dramatically reduced emissions thereafter, and climate neutrality in the
second half of the century."
President
Barack Obama also called on world leaders, specifically China to join the
United States to lead the rest of the world in carbon reduction.
Addressing
the United Nations, Obama reiterated, "We have a responsibility to
lead," “We know what we have to do to avoid irreparable harm.
We have to cut carbon pollution in our own countries to prevent the worst
effects of climate change. And we have to work together as a global community
to tackle this global threat before it is too late”.
Ahead of
the UN Summit
Ahead of
the summit thousands of people including the youth took to marching through the
streets to tell world leaders the need to cut global warming pollution.
On the other hand, UN Special
Envoy on Climate Change and the former president of Ghana, John Agyekum Kufuor,
had engaged almost all African leaders on the need to galvanize support and
declare their commitment towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Before
the summit, it was expected that world leaders attending the summit demonstrate
that they fully understand the dangers that climate change poses to
the prosperity and well-being of their citizens; and also acknowledge their
collective responsibility to act urgently to reduce this threat.
Fortunately,
foreign ministers of US, Peru, and France met their colleague ministers at the
Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate Change Ministerial on Sunday 21st September,
2014 ahead of the UN Summit and admitted that climate change has impacts not
only on the environment but on various economies and global security interests
as well.
The US Secretary of State, John Kerry, in his opening statement at the
foreign ministers forum recognized 20 countries, including US and China as “the
economies that are in the best position to be able to address the global threat
of climate change”
Addressing the ministers Kerry reiterated “unlike many of the challenges
that we face, when it comes to climate change we know exactly what it takes to
get the job done. There’s no mystery to this. The solution to climate
change is energy policy. If we make the right choices about how we build
buildings, how we transport people, what we do with respect to providing
electricity and power to our countries, this problem gets solved. And every one
of our countries has the technologies today to be able to do this. The policies
aren’t complicated. It’s getting the political will to make the decisions to do
what we know we have to do about it. It’s as simple as that, and that is true
all over the world.”
My
concerned as an African who is largely affected by the impact of climate change
is for world leaders to abide by their own commitments this time round to avoid
the same disappointment saw during the Rio Earth summit, of 1992, and the Kyoto
protocol which could not successfully address issues of emission reduction.
The UN Summit
took place on 23rd September, 2014, marking the first time in
five years that world leaders got together to register a bold and new course of
action on climate change. The Secretary-General charged leaders to declare
significant and substantial initiatives to help move the world toward a path
that will limit global warming.
Among the
declarations at the Summit include increasing the use of renewable energy,
increasing energy efficiency, reducing deforestation, promoting climate smart
agriculture, building resilience, reducing pollutants, mobilizing finance for
climate action, and promoting climate action in the world’s cities.
First Published/Citifmonline.com
