Climate evidence - impacts on people

29 March 2010

UN High Commissioner for Refugees
Says climate change could force up to a billion people from their homes by 2050. [i] More than 200 million people live in coastal plains around the world - including in major cities.

World Health Organisation
Warns of the spread of disease - an increase in skin cancers, heat-related deaths and malaria. [ii]

Global Humanitarian Forum
Estimates that around 300,000 deaths per year may already be a result of climate change, mainly because of malaria, diarrhoea and malnutrition.[iii]

US National Academy of the Sciences
Says 10% less rainfall could be associated with 2 degrees of warming. And this could cause major drought in the Mediterranean, Africa, eastern South America, western Australia, southeast Asia and the south west of North America.[iv]

International security experts warn of enormous social upheaval and conflict as a result of global warming as millions of people compete for increasingly scarce resources like water. [v] [vi]

Food on the front line

Global warming spells profound changes for farming.

United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)
Says a heat wave in 2003 reduced fodder yields in France by around 60%.[vii]

The journal 'Science'
Reports that every 1 degree of warming lowers the yields of major grain crops in the tropics and sub-tropics by between 2.5% and 16%. Things get worse with dryer soils, erosion or flooding.[viii]

Hotter, drier landscapes will create prime conditions for lethal wildfires - like those that devastated communities in Australia in recent years. [ix] 

It's not just on land that we'll see major changes. Experts say the oceans will be affected too.

US National Academy of the Sciences
Says warming seas are also affecting coral reefs - some are already in serious decline.[x]

Environment Agency (UK)
Documents serious risks for people in Britain - especially from flooding. [xi]

Foresight
Offers analysis of impacts of climate change on thnigs like Britain's coastal defences. [xii]

> What we should do - the evidence

[i] Planning for the Inevitable, the Humanitarian Consequences of Climate Change. Remarks by Mr L Craig Johnstone, United Nations Deputy High Commissioner for Refugees.
[ii] World Health Organization (2007). Climate and health. Fact sheet N°266. August 2007.
[iii] Global Humanitarian Forum (2009). Climate Change: Human Impact Report. 
[iv] Solomon, S. et al (2009). Irreversible climate change due to carbon dioxide emissions. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106, 1704-1709.
[v] Kurt M. Campbell, Jay Gulledge, J.R. McNeill, John Podesta, Peter Ogden, Leon Fuerth, R. James Woolsey, Alexander T.J. Lennon, Julianne Smith, Richard Weitz, and Derek Mix. The Foreign Policy and National Security Implications of Global Climate Change.
[vi] Climate Change and International Security. Paper from the High Representative and the European Commission to the European Council. S113/08 14 March 2008.
[vii] UNEP (2004). Environment Alert Bulletin: Impacts of summer 2003 heat wave in Europe.
[viii] Battisti, D. and Naylor, R. (2009). Historical Warnings of Future Food Insecurity with Unprecedented Seasonal Heat. Science, 323, 240-244.
[ix] David Karoly, University of Melbourne, Australia. Wildfire in a 4+°C World.
[x] Lesser, M. (2007). Coral reef bleaching and global climate change: Can corals survive the next century? Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104, 5259-5260.
[xi] Climate Change. Adapting for Tomorrow. Environment Agency 2009.
[xii] Flood and Coastal Defence. Foresight.