16 June 2009 | Luca Del Buono

 

Asia's share of global greenhouse gas emissions could rise to more than 40 percent by 2030, making it the world's main driver of climate change, experts warned Tuesday.

The most populous continent with the fastest-growing economies in China and India already accounts for a third of world emissions of gases blamed for warming weather, including carbon dioxide, Asian Development Bank President Haruhiko Kuroda told a conference in Manila.

Its share of discharges from energy use has tripled over the past 30 years, he said.Asia also stands out as the most vulnerable region to climate change.

In addition to water shortages, crop yields in Central and South Asia could drop by 30 percent by 2050, and coastal cities including Bangkok, Jakarta, Karachi, Manila, Mumbai and Shanghai will be vulnerable to flooding or damage from unpredictable weather patterns, the ADB said.

Within this century, people living in coastal Bangladesh, Maldives and Tuvalu in the southwest Pacific may be forced to flee because of rising sea levels, the Manila-based lender said.

"Climate change has this characteristic of exacerbating the existing stress in a region ... which is afflicted by poverty and a lack of infrastructure," said Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Climate scientists have urged rich countries to reduce emissions by between 25 percent and 40 percent by 2020 to avoid the worst effects of warming.

They say warming weather will lead to widespread droughts, floods, higher sea levels and worsening storms.

Even a 3.6-degree Fahrenheit (2-degree Celsius) temperature rise could subject up to 2 billion people to water shortages by 2050 and threaten extinction for 20 percent to 30 percent of the world's species, according to a 2007 report by the intergovernmental panel, a U.N. network of 2,000 scientists.

Kuroda said it was imperative to step up efforts to put the region on a path of low-carbon growth.U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, in a video address to the conference, called on Asian countries to help achieve a new global warming agreement in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December.

Ban said he wants to see an "ambitious, comprehensive and fair" deal.

Click here to read more

Source: Associated Press (AP)

blog comments powered by Disqus