The poor countries are the most exposed to the consequences of climate change, and the most at risk of natural disasters: the situation was stigmatised during a press conference held by the Catholic aid organization Misereor and the Münchener Rück Stiftung (foundation) in Potsdam on 18 September. Its aim was to launch a study on the relations between climate change and poverty conducted by the Potsdam Institute for the study of climatic consequences (PIK) and the Institute for Social Policy (IGP) at the Faculty of Philosophy in Munich. “It’s an important challenge”, says Joachim Schellnhuber, Director of the IGP, commenting on the study which is intended to “formulate new scientific bases for the fight against poverty in times of climate change”. Josef Sayer, Director of Misereor, criticised the fact that hitherto public opinion has considered these two issues as separate problems. “There exists on the contrary a strong synergy between them which it will be the purpose of the study to explain”, he pointed out. “To mitigate the consequences of climate change”, he added, “it will be necessary, according to preliminary estimates, to incur costs of tens of billions in addition to the funds already allocated”. Ottmar Edenhofer of the Potsdam Institute pointed out the responsibilities of the rich countries, which, he said, “have accumulated riches at the cost of climate change. The industrialized countries must therefore substantially reduce their polluting emissions and enable the poor countries to benefit from low-emission development. “A targeted technological policy, a global system for the management of emissions, and the setting up of an adjustment fund” are needed to this end. The immediate interventions, aimed at reducing the risk of poverty for the more disadvantaged classes, were outlined by Thomas Loster of the Münchener Rück Stiftung: “micro-insurance and innovative products in the farming and animal husbandry sectors are particularly promising to this end. A programme of cover that mitigated the consequences of a drought for over 15 million farmers was implemented for the first time in Ethiopia in 2005”, he explained.
