Saturday, October 29, 2011

Stark Divide Between Who Caused Climate Change and Who's Being Hit - Damian Carrington

While rich, industrialized nations caused climate change through past carbon emissions, it is the developing world that is bearing the brunt.  The point is starkly illustrated in a new map of climate vulnerability: the rich global north has low vulnerability, the poor global south has high vulnerability.

Large areas of north America and northern Europe are not so exposed to actual climate risk, and are very well placed to deal with it. 

The map is produced by risk analysts Maplecroft by combining measures of the risk of climate change impacts, such as storms, floods, and droughts, with the social and financial ability of both communities and governments to cope. The top three most vulnerable nations reflect all these factors: Haiti, Bangladesh, Zimbabwe.

It is not until you go all the way down 103 on the list, out of 193 nations, that you encounter the first major developed nation: Greece. The first 102 nations are all developing ones. Italy is next, at 124, and like Greece ranks relatively highly due to the risk of drought.

The full article is available here