Millions of people living in countries across Asia face floods and hunger due to climate change this century, Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the UN climate panel, said Tuesday. Briefing reporters in New Delhi about the recent report of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Pachauri said 50 million people would be exposed to hunger by 2020 as global warming would result in less rainfall in Asia affecting agricultural yields and leading to food and water scarcity, dpa reported. Pachauri said populations living in coastal and low-lying areas of South, South-East and East Asia such as in Vietnam, Bangladesh, India and China were particularly vulnerable with a projected rise in sea level. "Even under the most conservative scenario, sea level will be about 40 centimetres higher than today by the end of the 21st century and projected to increase the annual number of people flooded in coastal populations from 13 million to 94 million," Pachauri said. Almost 60 million people will be affected in South Asia, along coasts from Pakistan, through India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh to Myanmar, Pachauri also the director of the New Delhi-based environmental think-tank Energy and Resources Institute told reporters. Besides flooding, Asians also face risks of hunger and disease at the present rate of global warming. "Substantial losses are likely in rain-fed wheat growing regions in South and South-East Asia," he said. For instance, a 0.5 degree rise in winter temperature will reduce wheat yield by 0.45 tonnes per hectare in India. The average yield of wheat per hectare was 2.6 tonnes. Food insecurity and loss of livelihood would be further exacerbated by loss of cultivated land and nursery areas for fisheries by inundation and coastal erosion in low-lying areas of Asia. About 750 million people who rely on the glacier melt from the Himalayan Hindukush mountains for water supplies would also be "seriously affected," he said. The report, "Climate Change 2007: Impact, Adaptation and Vulnerability" released in Brussels on April 6, blamed human interference as the main reason for global warming. A joint effort by over 100 countries, the report projected increase of disease and mortality from diarrheal illnesses associated with floods and droughts in East, South and South-East Asia. The report also revealed that in future, climate change would impact forest expansions, migrations and would create an exacerbated threat to bio-diversity.
