Bangladesh
tops the Global Climate risk Index
No
developed country is on the top 20 list of countries worst
affected by extreme weather events.
08/12/2009
15:45 - 600,000 people died as a direct consequence from
more than 11,000 extreme weather events from 1990 to 2008,
the 2010 Global Climate Risk Index shows.
The
report from the climate and development organization Germanwatch
was released on Tuesday at the UN climate change conference
in Copenhagen, Denmark.
According
to the index, Bangladesh is the country most severely affected
with natural disasters claiming 8,241 lives and damaging
property worth 2.18 billion US dollars a year on average.
Myanmar,
Honduras, Vietnam, Nicaragua, Haiti, India, Dominican Republic,
Philippines and China are other countries in the top ten
of the 2010 index, based on data made available by the world's
largest reinsurer, Munich Re.
On
the top 20 list of affected countries, there are only four
developed countries: Italy, Portugal, Spain and the United
States.
"It's
really hard to make a climate risk index. Only the number
of people killed in natural calamities and losses of properties
were counted to make this report... But millions of people,
who survived extreme weather events and who are suffering
across the globe, were not taken into the account,"
says Dr Saleemul Haq, chief of the climate change cell of
the International Institute of Environment and Development,
according to The Daily Star.
He
added that some African nations would have been on the list,
if the surviving people had been counted.
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Bangladesh
asks for 15 percent of any climate fund
Even
before any climate adaptation fund has seen the light of
day, Bangladesh makes substantial demands.
Rie Jerichow - 08/12/2009 12:15 - If sea levels rise by
one meter, at least 20 million Bangladeshis, of a total
population about 150 million, would be displaced. If the
glaciers on the Himalayas melt due to global warming, the
situation is even worse.
"The
population of our one coastal district is bigger than the
entire population of all island countries and in that consideration
at least 15 percent of any climate fund should come to us,"
State Minister of Environment and Forest Hasan Mahmud told
a news conference, according to Reuters.
Hasan
Mahmud emphasized that Bangladesh is the most vulnerable
country in the world to climate change, Reuters reports.
"We
are not begging any mercy from anyone. Rather we want justice
as the worst victim of climate change," said Qazi Kholiquzzaman
Ahmad, a leading economist, who is also part of the Bangladesh
climate negotiation team.
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No
doubt: The earth is warming
The
British Met Office has released world-wide temperature data
into the public domain to give evidence that the globe is
warming.
08/12/2009 13:35 - The British Met Office has published
station temperature records for over 1,500 of the stations
that make up the global land surface temperature record.
The data shows that global-average land temperatures have
risen over the last 150 years and that global warming has
increased since the 1970s.
According
to Reuters, the Met Office Hadley Centre has published the
data to increase transparency and support evidence that
the globe is warming.
The
release is a response to the series of leaked e-mails from
the University of East Anglia. The e-mails indicated that
some climate experts were suppressing others' data to enhance
their own, Reuters reports.
The
Met Office will continue to put as much of the station temperature
record as possible into the public domain. When international
approvals are in place, the remaining station records –
around 5,000 in total – will be released.
Da
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
