Poor people are the worst-affected by climate change, says Pachauri

Pointing out that the "poor are the worst-affected in case of climate change due to lack of infrastructure and means to counter it," Nobel laureate Rajendra K. Pachauri urged the "rich" to be "sensitive to the needs and plight of the poor."Addressing the Environment Partnership Summit 2009, organised by the Indian Chamber of Commerce here on Thursday, Mr. Pachauri said that "it will be most unfair on our part to deprive the poor access to natural resources which are important for their existence."Citing the example of the heat waves that hit Andhra Pradesh a few years ago, he said that the poor people were most affected because neither were they warned beforehand nor did they have any knowledge of how to cope with the heat. On the issue of industrialised countries trying to avoid their responsibility of curbing emission rate and passing the buck to developing countries, Mr. Pachauri said: "We all look towards the new American President Barack Obama's leadership — his commitment towards environment concerns gives us hope.He stressed the need to cut down emission of greenhouse gases to save the planet. "Climate change is one of the symptoms of a larger problem… Greater scarcity of water, increasing salinity of soil, decline of agriculture due to floods, droughts and heat waves will have a serious bearing on the development factor globally."

 

The Hindu, 20th February 2009