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By Ben Blanchard
BEIJING, Oct 19 (Reuters) – The world is not doing enough to combat global warming which, left unchecked, could trigger a mass movement of people and have serious consequences for security, the United Nation’s environment chief said on Thursday.
“For those of us who look at the science and look at the indicators, it’s not enough yet, but it is more than we would have hoped for maybe a few years ago,” Achim Steiner, Executive Director of the U.N. Environment Programme, said.
In an interview with Reuters, he raised the possibility of climate refugees and the huge disruption this could cause.
Experts have said that millions of people in densely populated, low-lying, developing countries such as Bangladesh and parts of China, Indonesia and Vietnam might be forced to move by rising sea levels.
In the South Pacific, this has already begun to occur in some low-lying islands.
“If global warming trends continue at the moment, and the models suggest that they are and maybe doing so more rapidly, they will have significant impact on where people can live, grow food and whether people will have to leave,” he added.
“We will have disease spreading and it will have implications in terms of global trade, perhaps,” Steiner said in an interview on the sidelines of a maritime protection forum in Beijing.
BEIJING, Oct 19 (Reuters) – The world is not doing enough to combat global warming which, left unchecked, could trigger a mass movement of people and have serious consequences for security, the United Nation’s environment chief said on Thursday.
“For those of us who look at the science and look at the indicators, it’s not enough yet, but it is more than we would have hoped for maybe a few years ago,” Achim Steiner, Executive Director of the U.N. Environment Programme, said.
In an interview with Reuters, he raised the possibility of climate refugees and the huge disruption this could cause.
Experts have said that millions of people in densely populated, low-lying, developing countries such as Bangladesh and parts of China, Indonesia and Vietnam might be forced to move by rising sea levels.
In the South Pacific, this has already begun to occur in some low-lying islands.
“If global warming trends continue at the moment, and the models suggest that they are and maybe doing so more rapidly, they will have significant impact on where people can live, grow food and whether people will have to leave,” he added.
“We will have disease spreading and it will have implications in terms of global trade, perhaps,” Steiner said in an interview on the sidelines of a maritime protection forum in Beijing.
INTERVIEW-Refugees, disease big risk from global warming -U.N.