Minorities worst hit by climate change

London, Mar 11 (UNI) Minorities from Asia to Europe and Latin America were worst hit by dangerous climate change, a report by the international NGO Minority Rights Group said today.

The man-made environmental disasters were striking ethnic or religious minorities and indigenous peoples.

Greenhouse emissions from developed industrialised nations were changing global weather patterns with disastrous consequences for poorer countries. Even as the United Nations was calling richer polluting nations to pay for the ''climate-proofing'' of the developing world, concerns are mounting that groups living on the margins of these societies would not be protected.

''Climate change has made it to the top of the international agenda but at every level recognition of the acute difficulties that minorities face is often missing,'' Minority Rights Group's Ishbel Matheson said.

The European Union and the UN have recognised the security implications of climate-led disasters striking poorer countries, pointing to the increased likelihood of wars and mass migration.

At the UN climate talks in Bali in December, 190 nations signed up a roadmap aiming towards a binding global deal to stave off a climate disaster. That roadmap contains commitments to massive funding to help poor countries adapt to the changes on their way, but some of the attempts to scale back the carbon economy are creating as many problems as they are relieving.

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