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| Global
Warming : India to be biggest loser |
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India, the
world's second most populous country, will be the
biggest loser from global warming, losing millions
of tones of its potential cereal harvest each year
because of climate change, a study released here
today said. |
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| A sophisticated
computer model of the world's agriculture and the local
effects of atmospheric warming suggest that, 80 years
from now, the planet will be divided up into clear winners
and losers. The winners will mostly be the developed countries
of the northern hemisphere, which with few exceptions
will be able to extend their farming range because of
warmer temperatures. |
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| Canada and Russia,
which will be able to cultivate land that previously was
frost-bound, will together score a gain in production
of more than 130 million tones, and Finland and Norway
as well as New Zealand in the southern hemisphere, will
also benefit. Cereal production could fall among big producers
such as France, Ukraine and United States, as well as
Britain and Australia, where the soil will be drier. |
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| The big losers will
be the world's poor, which by cruel irony are the least
to blame for global warming. From 1950 to the present,
developing countries have accounted for only a quarter
of the 'greenhouse' gases, a fossil-fuel byproduct of
industrialization, that are causing the atmosphere to
warm. Rich countries have pumped out the remaining 75
per cent. "Sixty-five developing countries, representing
more than half the developing world's total population
in 1995, (will) lose about 280 million tones of potential
cereal production (in the 2080s) as a result of climate
change," the study says. |
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| In water-stressed
South Asia, where at present two-thirds of the world's
800 million undernourished live, India will lose "a massive"
125 million tonnes of cereal each year, equal to 18 per
cent of its maximum harvest potential, on the calculation
of one crop per year. |
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| China, however,
is one of the 52 developing countries that could gain
somewhat from the warmer temperatures, higher levels of
carbon dioxide and rainfall caused by global warming.
Other potential beneficiaries are Central Asian countries,
half of the countries in South America, as well as Kenya
and South Africa |
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| A five-person team
from the International Institute conducted the study for
Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), an Austrian-based non-governmental
organization that researches sustainable development. |
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Global
Warming
