Some 182 million people in sub-Saharan Africa could die of disease directly attributable to climate change by the end of the century, a report from Third World charity Christian Aid has warned.
The authors have called on the Government to take a lead in curbing global warming.
The report, The Climate of Poverty: the Facts, Fears and Hope, was launched yesterday to coincide with Christian Aid Week. It found that millions could face death due to climate-induced floods, famine, drought and conflict.
The report highlights the situation in Kenya, where it notes climate change is fuelling violence in drought-hit areas, with factions fighting over the right to water their cattle at a diminishing number of water holes.
It also examines the situation in Bangladesh and states that a predicted rise in sea levels would leave millions displaced and dispossessed.
"Already families must move every couple of years, as increased melt-water from the Himalayan glaciers sweeps their land and fragile livelihoods away."
Christian Aid has called on the Government to institute a strict "carbon budget" which will reduce emissions, year on year, by two-thirds of 1990 levels by 2050.
It also recommends that the Government should offer additional financial support to developing countries to compensate for damaging the environment, and help to establish and fund programmes to provide renewable energy to poor communities.
For less money than it would require to pay the region's oil bill over the next decade, every household in Africa could change over to clean and renewable energy, the report said.
Niamh Garvey, policy officer at Christian Aid Ireland, says the research reveals that floods, pestilence, famine and war are what the world can expect in the decades to come. "It is poor people who will bear the brunt," she said.
Sir John Houghton, former co-chair of the scientific assessment working group of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, has come out in support of the report.
