The "silent crisis" of climate change already claims an estimated 300,000 lives a year around the world with annual deaths expected to reach half a million by 2030, a report published in London today warned, according to dpa. Rising temperatures due to the changing climate already affected the lives of 325 million people around the globe - a figure set to rise to 660 million, or 10 per cent of the world's population, in 20 years' time, the report by the Global Humanitarian Forum (GHF) said. Former United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan, President of the GHF, described climate change as the "greatest emerging humanitarian challenge of our time" at the launch in London Friday. "Climate change is a silent human crisis," said Annan. It caused suffering to hundreds of millions of people, most of whom "were not even aware" that they were victims. The world's poorest people, particularly women and children, were the worst hit, "although they have done least to contribute to the problem." The report, entitled The Anatomy of a Silent Crisis," was published ahead of preparatory talks in Bonn, Germany, on a follow-up agreement to the Kyoto Protocol which expires in 2012. Annan called for a new international agreement to contain climate change and to reduce the widespread suffering it caused. He said that despite its "dangerous impact", research into climate change had up to now failed to address its "human face." According to the report, the economic losses due to climate change are currently estimated at 125 billion dollars per year, a figure that would almost treble to 340 billion dollars by 2030. In order to avert the worst possible scenario, funding to help those in developing countries deal with the consequences of climate change needed to be increased by 100 times, the report warned. Most of the deaths would occur as a result of long-term environmental degradation due to climate change, with causes including malnutrition and disease, while others would be the result of weather-related disasters. By 2030, the number of people seriously affected, either in the short term, for example through loss of their homes due to weather disasters such as flooding, or in the long term through water scarcity, hunger or disease, could rise to 660 million. The report also warns that the majority of the world's population did not have the capacity to deal with the impact of climate change. As many as four billion people were vulnerable to the impact of climate change, such as sea level rise and natural disasters, the report said. Those most at risk were living in some of the poorest areas in the world, which were also most at risk from climate change, including sub-Saharan Africa, South and South East Asia and small island developing states. "As this report shows, the alternative is greater risk of starvation, migration and sickness on a massive scale," said Annan.
