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Scotland ‘a refuge from rising seas’see - http://www.sundayherald.com/56112Scotland ‘a refuge from rising seas’ By Rob Edwards, Environment Editor MORE than two billion people could see their homes disappear under water when pollution melts the polar ice caps, creating the biggest refugee crisis the world has ever seen. That is the alarming prediction made by British climate change experts in a new report obtained by the Sunday Herald. Rising sea levels will force millions to leave low-lying coastal areas and seek higher ground. As a result, refugees from London, East Anglia, The Netherlands, Africa, Asia and elsewhere will try to make their homes in Scotland. And because Scottish pollution helped cause the problem, we should welcome them with open arms, say environmentalists. Researchers from universities in East Anglia, Newcastle and Southampton were commissioned by the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU) to investigate the impact of sea level rises on coastal communities. According to their report, a “plausible” sea level rise of 10 metres within the next 500 years “could displace 900 million people, rising to 2.6 billion if coastward migration continued”. In recent years millions of people have moved from inland to live close to the sea. The first to be flooded would be 1.5 million people on the Mediterranean coast of Egypt, who would lose their homes with just a 50cm sea level rise. A rise of one metre would evict 23m people in five European countries, including much of The Netherlands. Larger rises would threaten Eastern England, Florida, much of the US coast, and low-lying regions of Venezuela, Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay. Africa would also be vulnerable but by far the worst hit continent would be Asia. More than 250 million people on the region’s river deltas would be displaced. The report points out that mass migrations caused by global warming could begin as soon as 2030. The WBGU is urging the German government to consider a quota system for climate change refugees, linked to the amount of pollution that each nation has caused. “The international community will not be able to ignore the problem of refugees and will therefore need to develop appropriate instruments to ensure that affected people are received in suitable areas,” it says. Environmental groups called on Scotland to be ready to take its fair share of immigrants. “The impacts of climate change are unfairly borne by the planet’s poorest people,” said the chief executive of Friends of the Earth Scotland, Duncan McLaren. “Those in the developed countries should shoulder much of the responsibility. Scotland has a strong moral obligation to welcome the climate refugees.” Dr Richard Dixon, the director of WWF Scotland, said: “If people think the issue of refugees is controversial now, wait until climate change puts a billion people on the move. Preventing some of that suffering and misery is a big reason to cut emissions today.” The Scottish parliament is due to debate the Scottish Executive’s climate change strategy on Thursday. “We are not aware of any evidence to suggest there will be major shifts of population which would have significant implications for Scotland,” an Executive spokesman said. 04 June 2006 |
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| SLG |
Re: Scotland ‘a refuge from rising seas’
Just a 50cm rise? That's a large rise in global sea levels. I though we were talking about levels rising in millimetres not centimetres. |
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