Tiempo Climate Newswatch

The world's poorest children are among the principal victims of climate change, according to a new report from the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). "It is clear that a failure to address climate change is a failure to protect children," said David Bull from UNICEF UK. "Those who have contributed least to climate change - the world's poorest children - are suffering the most." The report's authors estimate that global warming could be responsible for 40,000 to 160,000 child deaths a year in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa as economic growth is affected.

Fighting drought is essential in resolving the world food crisis, the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR) has concluded. "Drought creeps, so we can outrun it," said ISDR Secretariat head Sálvano Briceño. "But this will take a genuine mindset and policy shift towards the ethos that prevention is better than cure, and serious political and economic commitment to saving harvests and lives on a global economic level." ISDR recommends greater emphasis on disaster risk, with the international community strengthening defences against climate change, drought and desertification through measures such as improved water management.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere rose by 19 billion tonnes last year, an increase of 0.6 per cent, reports the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The rise is 20 per cent higher than the recent average annual increase. The atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide now stands at 385 parts per million.

Methane levels in the atmosphere also increased during 2007 after holding steady since 1999. Ed Dlugokencky of NOAA's Earth Systems Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado, is "pretty sure [the rise] didn't come from biomass burning" because the data show no sign of a significant increase in carbon monoxide, also produced by burning biomass, but he is watching for the first signs of methane release from thawing Arctic permafrost.

The countries of the Asia-Pacific region could save US$700 billion by 2030 through greater use of energy conservation and renewable energy, the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) predicts. "Heavy dependency on fossil fuels is aggravating the Asia-Pacific region's economic vulnerability," Noeleen Heyzer of ESCAP told a ministerial summit in Bangkok, Thailand.

Without energy management reform, the poor would be increasingly unable to afford energy, she warned. "Income inequalities have led, among others, to serious social and environmental imbalances. An increasing part of the region houses the world's poor and live in areas where the environment is under stress," Heyzer continued. "The poorest people may use less energy but actually pay proportionately more than the rich for energy services. These high levels of inequality erode social cohesion in the region."