Climate-change adaptation to cost 75-90 billion dollars

Bangkok - Climate-change adaptation is likely to cost developing countries 75 billion to 90 billion dollars annually from 2010-50, according to a study released Wednesday by the World Bank. The study, funded by Netherlands and Britain, claimed to provide the first methodical evaluation of how much developing countries will need to spend to adapt to climate change over the next 40 years, a sensitive issue at the UN climate talks underway in Bangkok this week and next. Based on an assumption that global temperatures would rise at least 2 degrees Celsius over the next four decades, adaptation costs for the developing world in such sectors as infrastructure 'climate proofing' will be 75 billion to 90 billion dollars a year, the bank said at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change negotiations. 'The gross costs will be highest in the Asia-Pacific region, followed by Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa,' said Warren Evans, World Bank environment department director. The bank made its estimates based on two future climate scenarios that differ on the predicted increase in rainfalls, Evans said. According to the study, adaptation costs for the Asia-Pacific under the so-called wetter scenario amount to about 25 billion dollars a year. For Latin America, the estimated annual sum is 21.5 billion dollars, 18.1 billion dollars for Sub-Saharan Africa, 12.6 billion dollars for South Asia, 9.4 billion dollars for Europe and Central Asia, and 3 billion dollars for the Middle East and North Africa. The two sectors requiring the lion's share of the adaptation costs are infrastructure and coastal zones, the report said, requiring investments of 29.5 billion and 30.1 billion dollars annually. In the drier-case scenario, Asia-Pacific countries would need to spend an estimated 19.6 billion dollars, Latin America 16.9 billion dollars, Sub-Saharan Africa 16.9 billion dollars, South Asia 15.6 billion dollars, Europe and Central Asia 5.6 billion dollars, and the Middle East and North Africa 3 billion dollars per year. 'The infrastructure costs are for climate-proofing roads, drainage, hospitals, schools,' said Urvashi Narain, a World Bank senior economist who helped compile the study. Coastal zone adaptation includes building dykes and saving mangroves, she said. Much of the costs would have to be picked up by local governments, but the bank noted that the estimated costs were similar to amounts currently spent by industrialized nations on Overseas Development Assistance. 'Economic growth is the most powerful form of adaptation; however, it cannot be business as usual,' Evans said, noting that in the future, all governments would need to factor in adaptation costs to their national development plans. The study did not provide a breakdown of how much industrialized nations would have to contribute to help developing countries, one of the more controversial issues discussed at the Bangkok talks. But the results were welcomed by activists as the first effort to place a global price tag on adaptation for the developing countries, which are deemed the most vulnerable to climate change. 'The new figures should send a crucial message to rich-country negotiators, to acknowledge that enough money must be put on the table well before Copenhagen, as developing countries will not sign on to a deal without it,' Oxfam senior climate policy adviser Antonio Hill said. Hill pointed out that many developing countries are already suffering the impact of climate change, and as of yet the developed countries have been tight-fisted with their donations. 'Rich countries have, disappointingly, committed a tiny fraction of what is needed - less than 300 million dollars per year will go to the UN Adaptation Fund by 2012 - less than the amount that one state in Germany is spending on adaptation, and paltry amounts through other multilateral and bilateral channels,' Hill said. The meeting drew about 4,000 country delegates and observers to finalize the negotiating text to be used in Copenhagen in December to agree upon a new global climate deal. Key controversies include persuading developed countries to agree to drastic carbon emission cuts and assist the developing world to adapt to and help mitigate climate change.