Warming could displace 75 million in Asia-Pacific

The changing climate could generate 75 million refugees in the Asia-Pacific region in the next 40 years, a report released. The report, by the aid agency Oxfam Australia and the think tank Australia Institute, said the consequences of unbridled greenhouse gas emissions should be discussed next week when Pacific Island Forum. Oxfam Australia executive director Andrew Hewett said Australia, one of the world’s biggest per-capita greenhouse-gas polluters, must make deep cuts to these climate-changing emissions. He called for Pacific island nations to be included as beneficiaries in a carbon-trading scheme. “They’re facing increasing food and water shortages, they’re losing land, they’re being forced from their homes, they’re dealing with rising cases of malaria and they’re facing much more intense weather patterns”, Hewett said.