Climate Change: Asia Is More Vulnerable

By Bhimsen Thapaliya

ASIAN countries are headed to face critical water and food shortages unless concrete measures are taken to control the rise in greenhouse gases, warns an internal body of experts on climate change. The warning is based on the already visible phenomenon of increasing temperatures and extreme weather patterns that have brought decline in the agricultural output and water availability in the continent.

"Future climate change is expected to put close to 50 million extra people at risk of hunger by 2020," says a report prepared by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The number of Asian people to be hit by hunger is projected to 132 million by 2050 and 266 million by 2080.

Temperatures are expected to rise by 5 degrees Celsius by the year 2080 unless drastic cuts are brought in the emissions of greenhouse gases. The IPCC report suggests that an increase of 2 degree Celsius in mean air temperature could decrease rice production by 5 to 12 per cent in China where rice farming depends on rain. Under the same scenario, net cereal crop output in South Asian countries is expected to decline by 4 to 10 per cent by the end of this century. In Bangladesh, rice production is feared to fall by about 10 per cent and wheat by a third by the year 2050.
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And 60 per cent of this increase is expected to occur in the South Asian coastal regions from Pakistan to Burma. Rest of the sea level rise will occur in Southeast Asia, especially in Thailand, Vietnam and Philippines. The impact of this rise could be more visible in megacities such as Bangkok, Shanghai and Tianjin. In Maldives, with 80 per cent of its islands lying not more than 1 metre above sea level, they are feared to be uninhabitable within 100 years, forcing 360,000 people to evacuate. [Read More]

Source: The Rising Nepal