Nargis is result of climate change, says CSE

New Delhi, May 7 (UNI) Nargis, the devastating cyclone that hit Myanmar this week killing over 20,000 people, was not a natural disaster but a man-made one caused by global warming that was leading to climate change, the Centre for Science and Environment said here today.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change(IPCC) has established that climate change will intensify cyclones and Nargis was the beginning of the change, it said.

"Last year, Bangladesh was devastated by the tropical cyclone.

The victims of these cyclones are climate change victims and their plight should remind the rich world that it is doing too little to contain its greenhouse gas emissions," CSE director Sunita Narain said here reacting to the disaster in Myanmar that has also left 40,000 missing.

"While we can never pinpoint one disaster as the result of climate change, there is enough scientific evidence that climate change will lead to intensification of tropical cyclones," says Ms Narain.

The 2007 report of the IPCC had clearly observed that cyclones will increase in their intensity as a result of global warming.

According to the IPCC: "There is observational evidence of an increase of intense tropical cyclone activity in the North Atlantic since about 1970, correlated with increases of tropical sea surface temperatures." Underlining that climate change was related to economic growth and wealth creation, Ms Narain called upon the developed world to see the writings on the wall and mend their ways to arrest global warming as they were responsible for the bulk of emission of greenhouse gases.

The lifestyle of the developed world was spelling doom for countries like Myanmar and Bangladesh. "The question that the world needs to answer now," says Narain, "is how to make these countries pay for the victims of climate change." ''The only way it can be done is by making them reduce their emissions drastically - 30 per cent by 2020 and 80 per cent by 2050.

There is no comparison between the emissions of countries like India or even China and rich big emitters of the world. There is a stock of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, built up over centuries in the process of creating nations' wealth, she said." UNI NAZ PK DB2000