They include doubling the proportion of people with access to drinking water by 2015, halving absolute poverty and improving the lives of 100 million slum dwellers by 2020. But without modeling the impact of disasters, this is wishful thinking. The Bangladesh center for advanced studies calculates that every dollar invested in the country is absorbed by the cost of dealing with predictable disasters.
It would also be a mistake for industrialized countries to think they can weather the storms. The disasters boomerang will hit the rich world in a number of ways. Insurance firms are backing away from providing cover to the one in 10 British households prone to flooding. Long-term projections from big insurers, such as CGNU, suggest that the upward curve of economic damage from global warming will overtake gross world product by 2065, effectively bankrupting the global economy. Serious destabilization is likely well before that date. Environmental refugees now outstrip in number political refugees. An estimated 25 million people are displaced by environmental causes, more than double the 12 million political refugees. They are proving such a contentious issue that the UN high commissioner for refugees does not want them to have international legal status requiring protection. Where global warming-driven disasters are forcing people to flee their homes, responsibility falls heavily on rich countries whose greenhouse gas emissions have largely created the problem. Their challenge is to provide financial and technical support, and to create protective status for environmental refugees.
It would also be a mistake for industrialized countries to think they can weather the storms. The disasters boomerang will hit the rich world in a number of ways. Insurance firms are backing away from providing cover to the one in 10 British households prone to flooding. Long-term projections from big insurers, such as CGNU, suggest that the upward curve of economic damage from global warming will overtake gross world product by 2065, effectively bankrupting the global economy. Serious destabilization is likely well before that date. Environmental refugees now outstrip in number political refugees. An estimated 25 million people are displaced by environmental causes, more than double the 12 million political refugees. They are proving such a contentious issue that the UN high commissioner for refugees does not want them to have international legal status requiring protection. Where global warming-driven disasters are forcing people to flee their homes, responsibility falls heavily on rich countries whose greenhouse gas emissions have largely created the problem. Their challenge is to provide financial and technical support, and to create protective status for environmental refugees.