Coral climate crisis puts 250 million at risk: U.N.
By David Fogarty, Climate Change Correspondent, Asia
COPENHAGEN
Sat Dec 12, 2009 3:48pm EST COPENHAGEN (Reuters) – More than 250 million people risk losing their livelihoods because of dying tropical coral reefs in what a senior U.N. environmental economist said on Saturday was part of a double climate crisis facing the world. “We forget that there are two emissions problems. The one that everyone is aware of and is doing something about is climate change,” said Pavan Sukhdev of the U.N. Environment Programme on the sidelines of the world’s largest climate talks. “The second emissions problem is the emergency around coral reefs,” he said. “More than 250 million people are at risk seriously of their lifeblood going away because of the lack of fish on tropical coral reefs,” he told reporters in Copenhagen. … Warming seas are causing corals to bleach, scientists say. Normally corals recover from bleaching episodes, but now reefs are dying, destroying fisheries, because oceans are absorbing growing amounts of CO2 and becoming increasingly acidic. Sukhdev said millions of people in the Caribbean, Indonesia and elsewhere in Asia dependent on fishing risk being forced to move away from the coast — in addition to people uprooted from coastal areas by rising seas. Former fishing families who have to move will need food, new livelihoods and housing, he said. …
