"Vulnerable regions are the places where the climate rubber meets the road,” says Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, lead-author of the report and director of PIK. “We developed narratives of severe risks for Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and South-East Asia which will have to be taken into account for further planning in these regions. It becomes ever more evident that climate policy and development policy are no contradiction but go hand in hand."
The World Bank highlights that climate change impacts have the potential to trap millions of people in poverty, especially in the tropics. However, a different future is possible, World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim points out. “We can help cities grow clean and climate resilient, develop climate smart agriculture practices, and find innovative ways to improve both energy efficiency and the performance of renewable energies. We can work with countries to roll back harmful fossil fuel subsidies and help put the policies in place that will eventually lead to a stable price on carbon. We are determined to work with countries to find solutions. But, the science is clear. There can be no substitute for aggressive national mitigation targets, and the burden of emissions reductions lies with a few large economies.
Partly in response to findings of the two “Turn Down the Heat” reports, the World Bank Group is stepping up its mitigation, adaptation, and disaster risk management work, and will increasingly look at all its business through a ‘climate lens’. Today, the Bank is helping 130 countries to take action on climate change.
Weblink to World Bank information: http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2013/06/19/warmer-world-will-keep-millions-of-people-trapped-in-poverty-says-new-report
Weblink to infographic by the World Bank: http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2013/06/19/Infographic-Climate-Change-in-Sub-Saharan-Africa-South-Asia-South-East-Asia
