11 February 2008

CLIMATE CHANGE is a defining global social justice issue, says DFID Secretary of State

Source: The Guardian.
Britain is to increase its spending on research into the effects of climate change on developing countries tenfold to £100m over the next five years, the international development secretary, Douglas Alexander, said yesterday.
The move follows a warning in a United Nations development programme report that climate change would have catastrophic effects on poor countries and reverse decades of development gains.
Alexander said: "Climate change is a defining global social justice issue. If we fail to tackle climate change, we risk condemning the world's poorest people to poverty for generations to come."
The minister said the new money was on top of £75m the Department for International Development was spending on trying to help poor countries adapt to climate change. Last year Britain also announced an £800m fund to help developing countries adapt to clean energy.
It was crucial that poor countries leapfrogged the dirty kind of industrial development that rich countries went through in the past two hundred years and went straight for low-carbon economies.

Full article The Guardian.

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