Washington - Climate change could drive over 100 million more people into poverty by 2030 , the World Bank has said. In a report, the bank said ending poverty - one of 17 new U.N. goals adopted in September - would be impossible if global warming and its effects on the poor were not accounted for in development efforts.
More ambitious plans to reduce climate-changing emissions - aimed at keeping global temperature rise within an internationally agreed limit of 2 degrees Celsius - must also cushion poor people from any negative repercussions, it added.
"Climate change hits the poorest the hardest, and our challenge now is to protect tens of millions of people from falling into extreme poverty because of a changing climate," World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim said in a statement.
The bank's estimate of 100 million more poor by 2030 is on top of 900 million expected to be living in extreme poverty if development progresses slowly. In 2015, the bank puts the number of poor at 702 million people.
Climate change is already hurting them through decreased crop yields, floods washing away assets and livelihoods, and a bigger threat of diseases like malaria, said John Roome, World Bank senior director for climate change.
He described ending poverty and tackling climate change as "the defining issues of our generation".
"The best way forward is to tackle poverty alleviation and climate change in an integrated strategy," he told reporters.
Poor families are more vulnerable to climate stresses than the rich because their main assets are often badly built homes and degrading land, and their losses are largely uninsured, the report said.
The report warns that, between now and 2030, climate policies can do little to alter the amount of global warming that will happen, making it vital to invest in adaptation measures and broader ways to make people more resilient.
Better social safety nets and health coverage for all, together with targeted improvements such as flood defenses, early warning systems and hardier crops, could prevent or offset most of the negative effects of climate change on poverty in the next 15 years, the report said.
“We have a window of opportunity to achieve our poverty objectives in the face of climate change, provided we make wise policy choices now,” said Stephane Hallegatte, a senior World Bank economist who led the team that prepared the report.(FA)
