By DPA,
Sydney : The changing climate could generate 75 million refugees in the Asia-Pacific region in the next 40 years, a report released Monday said.
The report, by the aid agency Oxfam Australia and the think tank the Australia Institute, said the consequences of unbridled greenhouse gas emissions should be discussed next week when Pacific leaders convene in Australia for the annual Pacific Island Forum.
Oxfam Australia executive director Andrew Hewett said Australia, the region’s richest country and one of the world’s biggest per-capita greenhouse-gas polluters, must take the lead and make deep cuts to these climate-changing emissions.
He called for Pacific island nations to be included as beneficiaries in a carbon-trading scheme.
“They’re facing increasing food and water shortages, they’re losing land, they’re being forced from their homes, they’re dealing with rising cases of malaria and they’re facing much more intense weather patterns,” Hewett said.
The discussions at the Pacific Island Forum are to be conducted as world leaders try to hammer out a new treaty to reduce greenhouse gas emissions before the current commitment period of the Kyodo Protocol expires in 2012. Their goal is to finish it at a December conference in Copenhagen, but advance talks have been bogged down over costs.