World Bank joins war on climate change

The World Bank is on Tuesday expected to join the many voices that have been calling on leaders to come up with strategies to combat climate change.

The global financial institution will release a report calling for action to help tackle climate change.

Environment minister John Michuki is scheduled to attend the event and launch the report titled: World Development Report 2010; Development and Climate Change at the UNEP headquarters in Nairobi.

There is already overwhelming scientific evidence, as indicated in the Fourth Assessment Report of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), that climate change will threaten economic growth and long-term prosperity, as well as survival of the most vulnerable populations.

IPCC projects that if emissions continue to rise at their current pace and are allowed to double from pre-industrial levels, the world will face an average temperature rise of around 3° C this century.

This will lead to a rise in sea-level, shifts in seasons, and more frequent and intense extreme weather such as storms, floods and droughts.

Climate analyses indicate that Kenya will very likely be warmer by up to five degrees by 2100. Droughts will continue, possibly becoming more severe.

Warmer weather

In other parts of the country, rains could become more intense due to warmer weather, leading to floods.

The rise in sea level will affect Mombasa, with one study suggesting that 17 per cent of the island could be submerged by a sea-level rise of up to 30 centimetres.

UN climate change talks in Copenhagen in December thus offer a chance to step up international action on climate change.

A Copenhagen deal is essential to the global transition into green economic growth, and, most urgently, to help the world, especially the most vulnerable, adapt to impacts that are now inevitable.

On Monday, the Unep launched the World Economic and Social Survey 2009 report in Nairobi. It outlines several proposals that developing countries could use to tackle the negative effects of climate change.