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Angus Ali's Blog
Angus Ali's Blog


Climate Change
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Action is necessary now, before climate change moves beyond our control. Climate change is happening and needs to be addressed now. It is one of the most serious threats the world faces especially the developing countries. Droughts, floods and heatwaves are contributing to crop failure, conflicts and deaths. Rising sea levels are threatening the survival of coastal communities and the very existence of some low-lying islands e.g. Manus Island.

Poor rural people in the developing countries are the least responsible for producing the greenhouse gases that are causing the Earth’s climate to change, but they are the most vulnerable to its effects. Nearly one billion people survive on less than US$1 a day and this is evident in Papua New Guinea where employers are paid at a minimum wage of 60t 15 cents Australia p/hour. About 75 per cent of them live in rural areas. They are subsistence farmers, nomadic herders, day laborers and fishers. Many live on ecologically fragile land: mountains, coastal areas and deserts. They depend on vulnerable sectors: agriculture, livestock, fisheries and forestry.

Poor rural people lack the institutional and financial capacity to protect themselves against climate change. But they manage vast areas of land and forest, and can be important players in carbon sequestration. Helping them adapt to climate change in a sustainable way is an economic, social and moral imperative. Indigenous peoples are particularly vulnerable. They have a special role to play as stewards of our natural resources and biodiversity, yet they are often pushed out of their ancestral lands and onto the least fertile and most fragile lands.
Global warming is a universal problem but the response, whether adaptation or mitigation, needs to be tailored to local contexts. Papua New Guinea seriously need to take into account of the consequences of climate change and ensure preventive measures to overcome the trend we face today rather than later.

December 20, 2007 | 2:32 AM Comments  0 comments

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