Global warming causes 300,000 deaths a year: study

Karachi: Climate change is responsible for 30000 deaths a year and is affecting 300 million people, a study has claimed.

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The first comprehensive study of the human impact of global warming projects that increasingly severe heatwaves, floods, storms and forest fires will be responsible for as many as 500,000 deaths a year by 2030, making it the greatest humanitarian challenge the world faces.<

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Climate-change disasters are also causing economic losses, amounting to more than $125 billion a year - more than all the present world aid.<

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The report came from former UN Secretary-General Kofi AnnanKofi Annan’s thinktank, the Global Humanitarian forum. By 2030, it said, climate change could cost $600 billion a year.<

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Annan says: "The world is at a crossroads. We can no longer afford to ignore human impact of climate change. This is a call to the negotiators to come to most ambitious agreement ever negotiated or to continue to accept mass starvation, mass sickness and mass migration on an ever growing scale." <

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Rajendra Pachauri, Chair of UN Inter-governmental panel on climate change, said "The scale of devastation is so great that it is hard to believe the truth behind it, or how it is possible that so many people remain ignorant of this crisis."