Climate Impacts Are Going to Hit the Developing World Hardest, IPCC Says

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world's leading climate science body, declared in a new report that global warming is wreaking havoc "on all continents and across the oceans," with the worst yet to come.  But by far the most severe impacts will strike the poorest countries that bear little or no historical responsibility for causing climate change, the report said.

"Those countries who have contributed least to the manifestation of this problem are in jeopardy of being the most vulnerable to it," said Gary Yohe, an economist at Wesleyan University and a coordinating lead author of the IPCC report.  "The poor, the young, the old and the people who live along the coasts will be hit the hardest."

The message of "climate justice" comes through in the 2,500 pages of the IPCC's new report released on Monday in Japan.  The hot-button concept frames global warming as an ethical issue and involves developed nations financing poor nations' climate-related losses, damage and adaptation efforts."

We need to do much more to anticipate and reduce risks before they hit the most vulnerable groups," said Maarten van Aalst, director of the Red Cross/Red Crescent Climate Centre and a lead author of the IPCC report.  "That's something that's worth contributing to—especially for richer people and countries who have had the opportunity to develop partly because of heavy use of fossil fuels."

Climate Impacts Are Going to Hit the Developing World Hardest, IPCC Says