UN Study Introduces New Kind of Refugees
http://travelwirenews.com/eTN/17OCT2005.htm

By Saifuddin Ismailji

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (eTurboNews) -- By 2010, there will be a need for a category called "environmental" refugee as deteriorating environment could leave some 50 million people homeless, a United Nations (UN) study revealed.

About 12,000 global weather-related disasters since 1980 have caused over 618,000 fatalities at a cost of US$1.3 trillion, with US$567 billion over the last ten years alone.

Rising sea levels, hurricane storms and Desertification, linked to climate change might displace hundreds of millions of people, according to the report by the U.N. University's Institute for Environment and Human Security.

Disasters from climatic change have already affected millions of people in sub-Saharan Africa, India and Asia, according to the report.

Among the threats-- the Gobi desert in China is expanding by more than 3,900 sq mile a year.

The low-lying Pacific island state of Tuvalu has struck a deal with New Zealand to accept its 11,600 population, if the sea rises.

Hans van Ginkel, U.N. under secretary-general and director of the U.N. University, said in the report, "We should prepare now, however, to define, accept and accommodate this new breed of refugees."

Average atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration reached 377.4 ppm by volume, up 19 percent since Mauna Lao, Hawaii Observatory started measurements in 1959 and up 35 percent since the beginning of industrial era.

Ten warmest years on record all occurred after 1990, and 160,000 die annually due to climatic change, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Mountain glaciers are shrinking faster each exceeding year. Arctic temperatures have risen at almost twice global average in last the few decades.

US energy related emissions rose almost 16 percent from 1990-1993, while China's emissions rose 47 percent since 1990.

American geologists Roger Bilham and Kali Wallace of the University of Colorado, in a conference in India, suggested that the entire Himalayan region from the eastern Indian plate boundary in Myanmar to the western plate boundary through Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Baluchistan, could experience a future earthquake of a magnitude more than 8 on the Richter scale.

Further, seismic activity along the Indian plate boundary has become highly active recently-- the 9.3 magnitude Sumatra quake in December 2004, three months after seismic activity has hit back with an 8.6 magnitude quake. Most recently, Muzzafarabad, Pakistan is the site of South Asia’s strongest quake in 100 years, at 7.6 on the Richter scale. Newly opened fissures and huge cracks were seen in the mountains surrounding Muzaffarabad. As the helicopter hovered over the battered city the pilot pointed downwards to indicate another tremor.