KEY POINTS:
As many as a billion people could lose their homes by 2050 because of the devastating impact of global warming, scientists and political leaders have been told.
Delegates at a climate change conference hosted by a top British think tank heard last night that the steady rise in temperatures around the planet could trigger mass migration on unprecedented levels.
Hundreds of millions could be forced to move because of water shortages and crop failures in most of Africa, as well as in central and southern Asia and South America, the conference in London was told. There could also be an effect on levels of starvation and on food prices as agriculture struggles to cope with growing demand in increasingly arid conditions.
Rising sea levels could also cause havoc, and coastal communities in southern Asia, the Far East, the south Pacific islands and the Caribbean could be submerged.
North and west Africans could head towards Europe, and the southern border of the United States could come under renewed pressure from Central America.
The conference also heard a warning from the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) that the developed world should start preparing for a huge movement of people caused by climate change.
Craig Johnstone, the UNHCR deputy high commissioner, said yesterday that humanity faced a "global-scale emergency" whose effects would accumulate over the next four decades.
He said it was impossible to forecast with confidence the numbers of people who would lose their homes through climate change. But he pointed to assessments of between 250 million and one billion people losing their homes by 2050.
Mr Johnstone rejected the suggestion that the industrialised West should shoulder the burden because it was to blame for much of climate change.
But he said: "It's the obligation of the people who have the means to be helpful to help. They have an obligation to humanity to help."
He said the UNHCR already assisted in natural disasters such as earthquakes and the Asian tsunami of 2004 and added: "Perhaps even more challenging and more inevitable are the consequences of global changes."
The status of refugees - defined as people escaping personal persecution by the state - is controlled by the Geneva Convention of 1951.
But that agreement would not cover people who become homeless, or even stateless, because of changes to global weather patterns.
Pressure is therefore growing for the international community to reach a formal consensus on ways of dealing with the issue. Mr Johnstone said: "We're strongly in favour of there being adequate international mechanisms to cope."
Danny Sriskandarajah, head of migration at the Institute for Public Policy Research, said: "The displacement of millions of people will be one of the most dramatic ways in which climate change will affect humankind."
HOMELESS MILLIONS
* Hundreds of millions of people could be forced to flee their homes by 2050 because of water shortages and crop failures in Africa, central and southern Asia and South America.
* Rising sea levels could cause havoc for coastal communities in southern Asia, the Far East, the south Pacific islands and the Caribbean.
* North and west Africans are expected to head for Europe. The southern border of the United States could come under renewed pressure from Central America.
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