Billions face famine as world heats up

As global warming takes hold within 50 years, the number of people at risk from hunger will soar and another 1.5 billion will face water shortages.

The gloomy scenario is part of a detailed timetable, unveiled yesterday, of the destruction and distress likely to result from the greenhouse effect.

It pulls together for the first time the projected impacts on ecosystems and wildlife, food production, water and economies across the planet.

The timetable, which draws on a wide range of recent academic studies, was presented as a paper yesterday to the international conference on climate change being held at the British Met Office headquarters in Exeter by the author, Bill Hare, of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.

The conference has already heard disturbing warnings from the latest climate research, including the revelation from the British Antarctic Survey that the huge West Antarctic Ice Sheet might be starting to disintegrate - an event which, if it happened completely, would raise sea levels 4.9m worldwide.

Dr Hare's timetable shows the impacts of climate change multiplying rapidly as the average global temperature moves towards one degree centigrade above levels recorded before the industrial revolution, then to two, and then three degrees.

World temperatures are already 0.7 degrees above the pre-industrial level.

In the near future - the next 25 years - as the temperature climbs to the one-degree mark, some specialised ecosystems will be starting to feel stress, such as the tropical highlands forests of Queensland and the Succulent Karoo plant region of South Africa. In some developing countries, food production will start to decline, water shortage problems will worsen and there will be net losses in GDP.

It is when the temperature moves up to two degrees above the pre-industrial level, expected in the middle of this century, that really serious effects start, many studies suggest.

Substantial losses of Arctic Sea ice will threaten species such as polar bears, while in tropical regions "bleaching" of coral reefs will become more frequent and the reef may die.

Mediterranean regions will be hit by more forest fires and insect pests, while in US regions such as the Rockies, some rivers may become too warm for trout and salmon.

GDP losses in some developing countries will become significant.

- INDEPENDENT