Brown Sees "Catastrophe" in Climate Inaction
British PM Gordon Brown had strong words yesterday for negotiators preparing for the climate summit in Copenhagen. Stressing the dire threats posed by rising summer temperatures across Europe and vanishing freshwater resources worldwide, Brown warned:
If we do not reach a deal at this time, let us be in no doubt: once the damage from unchecked emissions growth is done, no retrospective global agreement, in some future period, can undo that choice…we should never allow ourselves to lose sight of the catastrophe we face if present warming trends continue.”
The costs of failing to tackle the issue would be greater than the impact of both world wars and the Great Depression combined, the prime minister said, (and that) the world would face more conflict fuelled by climate-induced migration if a deal was not agreed.”
A note on his latter point on migration – if you haven’t seen it yet, check out CARE International’s June report on climate-induced migration. Excerpt:
The negative impacts of climate change are already causing migration and displacement. The exact number of people that will be on the move by mid-century is uncertain. However, the scope and scale could vastly exceed anything that has occurred before…People in the least developed countries and island states will be affected first and worst. The consequences for the global economy and poverty reduction efforts could be devastating. There may also be substantial implications for political stability.”
Quantifying and codifying refugee and IDP movements is an inherently tricky business. The reasons leading people to move or flee are multifaceted, and the numbers hard to track. The NYT gives a good overview of the complexity of the statistics here – moral of the story is, ever more people seem to be on the move because climate conditions in their home communities have become unlivable. And as Prime Minister Brown pointed out, that will have serious security consequences if the problem goes unchecked.
