Urgent climate action 'can save money and reduce damage'
PRESS RELEASE for immediate release
UN Climate Talks: Urgent climate action can save money and reduce damage but no time to lose, says CARE
Bonn, Germany: Current slow progress in tackling the causes and effects of climate change will ultimately cost governments much more money, and cause much greater damage, than if countries acted rapidly to reduce emissions and help the world’s poorest people adapt to the realities of a changing climate, international development organisation CARE International says.
As the latest round of talks under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) drew to a close in Bonn, Germany, Director of CARE’s Poverty, Environment and Climate Change Network, Kit Vaughan, said: “Governments have again been out to lunch while the planet is burning. Last month we saw levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere race past the milestone threshold of 400 parts per million parts of air; a concentration last seen on Earth 3-5 million years ago when sea levels were up to 40 metres higher. Earlier this week, the respected International Energy Agency confirmed the world is not on track to meet urgently needed reductions in energy-related greenhouse gas emissions which are rising rather than falling. We have now less than 5 years to reverse this worrying trend.
“Also of particular significance for the world’s poorest people who CARE works with around the world, the UN’s High Level Panel report into the future of global development recently highlighted that climate change is now the biggest threat to eradicating extreme poverty by 2030. These three alarm bells show we are entering dangerous and unchartered territory.
“Meanwhile, governments are busy stalling and finger-pointing over agenda items rather than collaborating with ambition to tackle the biggest threat to our wellbeing. The Bonn conference has seen almost no action on reducing global emissions, shameful progress on raising funds to help the world’s poorest people adapt to the realities of climate change and nothing to deal with the increasing loss and widespread damage already being caused as a result of climate impacts.”
Vaughan adds: “Developed countries need to wake up. We need a paradigm shift and we need urgent action. Every failed round of climate talks and every day that is lost only adds to the spiraling costs of climate change - because acting sooner is cheaper and more effective. If we don’t act now, the financial and environmental costs of climate change will hemorrhage beyond our control and capacity.”
Climate change is already multiplying the impacts of disasters and increasing the frequency of extreme weather events around the world. Lives and livelihoods are being lost at a cost of billions of dollars. In the past weeks and months, Europe has been devastated by floods, major storms have hit Bangladesh, Australia has seen some of its worst-ever wildfires, and headline-grabbing hurricanes and tornadoes have caused extensive damage in the US and Caribbean.
Less visible, but equally serious effects such as widespread drought, sea-level rise, melting glaciers and ocean acidification also have a profound financial and environmental cost.
Scientists have long warned that keeping global warming to within the ‘safe level’ of 1.5-2°C will be almost impossible above the 350 parts of CO2 per million threshold. Now, current projections set the planet on the path to 4-6°C of warming by 2100, with devastating consequences for the world’s people and the natural environment on which we all depend.
Perversely, it is the world’s poor, who have done the least to cause climate change, who are also bearing the brunt of its effects. In many of the countries where CARE works, people who are already tackling poverty are now also struggling to cope with rising sea-levels which flood homes and crops, erratic weather patterns, which force farming communities to leave their ancestral lands in search of pasture and extreme weather which damages homes and infrastructure.
Vaughan adds: “Climate change is not just an environment issue, it’s a political and economic issue. It’s about the development choices that we make and who benefits and who loses. The world’s rich countries are historically responsible for causing climate change, but perversely it’s the world’s poorest who have done so little to cause it that are increasingly being hit the hardest. Without a rapid shift towards a low carbon, sustainable and resilient green economy – and an end to the global addiction to dirty fossil fuels – we are facing a catastrophe of unimaginable proportions. The world’s poorest people are now on the climate front line; and that is the single greatest injustice of our time.”
In response, CARE is calling on governments to:
- Ensure deep and rapid cuts to greenhouse gas emissions to limit global temperature rise to a maximum of 1.5C by 2100;
- Rapidly scale-up financial support, to help the world’s poorest and most vulnerable, particularly women and girls, adapt to the impacts of climate change;
- Ensure the development of a new international mechanism to deal with the loss and damage being caused by climate change.
Notes
- CARE works with some of the world’s poorest people to tackle the causes and impacts of climate change. In 2012, CARE’s 70 climate change projects and programmes spanned more than 30 countries and reached 350,000 people.
- For further information or to arrange an interview with Kit Vaughan, contact Jo Barrett, Communications and Press Coordinator on +44 7940 703911
- For further information about CARE’s work on climate change see www.careclimatechange.org
