Cost of climate change adaptation could destabilise African countries, UN warns
Source: The Guardian
Cost of climate change adaptation could destabilise African countries, UN warns
One billion Africans may be in harm's way if countries fail to
prepare for projected temperature rises, says report
John Vidal in Warsaw
theguardian.com, Wednesday 20 November 2013 12.36 GMT
African countries are increasingly vulnerable to climate change and could struggle to feed and defend their people as temperatures rise, according to a major UN report.
The cost of developing drought-resistant crops, providing early-warning systems for floods, droughts and fires, and building seawalls, dykes, and wave breaks will be vast, says the UN Environment Programme's (UNEP) emissions gap report, launched this week at an African environment ministers' meeting in Warsaw.
It will cost Africa approximately $350bn a year to adapt its farming and infrastructure to climate change if governments fail to hold temperatures to less than 2C and allow them to rise to about 4C, according to the report.
The higher temperatures rise, the greater the financial and human challenge to adapt, says the report, which argues that present policies point to temperatures rising to 3-4C by 2100, a turn of events it claims would be catastrophic.
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Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2013/nov/20/climate-change-adaptation-cost-destabilise-african-countries