Via Daily Beast:
Nearly 1,000 children a day are now dying because of climate change, according to a path-breaking study published Wednesday (PDF), and the annual death toll stands at 400,000 people worldwide.
Climate change also is costing the world economy $1.2 trillion a year, the equivalent of 1.6 percent of economic output, reports the Climate Vulnerability Monitor, a study commissioned by 20 of the world’s governments whose nations are most threatened by climate change and released on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly meeting in New York.
Most of the 400,000 annual deaths are “due to hunger and communicable diseases that affect above all children in developing countries,” concludes the study, written by 50 scientists and policy experts from around the world.
Separately, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization has warned that therecord heat and drought that struck the United States and other key global food producers during the summer of 2012 will slash crop yields, raise food prices, and, unless urgent action is taken, “turn into a catastrophe hurting tens of millions over the coming months.”
“The new report is another reminder that climate change’s most savage impact is hunger and poverty,” said Jeremy Hobbs, executive director of Oxfam International, in a statement. “Behind the statistics are the stories of real families and communities, for whom climate change means putting children to bed with empty stomachs.”
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