A recent economic analysis by researchers at MIT concludes that rising global temperatures will widen the gap between rich and poor with a 1 degree Celsius rise in temperature in a given year reduces economic growth by an average of 1.1 percentage points in the worlds poor countries, but has no measurable effect in rich countries.
http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/health/warming-planet-may-widen-gap-between-rich-and-poor_100167469.html#ixzz0adGiLlRPSo the current rate of climate change of a quarter of a mile per year is a lot bigger to the poorer people dependent on agriculture than the rich dependent on industrial production.
More than 60 nations, mainly in the Third World, will have existing tensions hugely exacerbated by the struggle for ever-scarcer resources. In 20 years, tens of millions more Latin Americans and hundreds of millions more Africans will be short of water, and by 2050 one billion Asians could face water shortages. The glaciers of the Himalayas, which feed the great rivers of the continent, are likely to melt away almost completely by 2035, threatening the lives of 700 million people.
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=71926Wars have been started for less.
Global warming creeps across the world at a speed of a quarter of a mile each year, according to a new study that highlights the problems that rising temperatures pose to plants and animals. Species that can tolerate only a narrow range of temperatures will need to move as quickly if they are to survive. Wildlife in lowland tropics, mangroves and desert areas are at greater risk than species in mountainous areas, the study suggests.
"These are the conditions that will set the stage, whether species move or cope in place," said Chris Field, director of the department of global ecology at the Carnegie Institution in the US, who worked on the project. "Expressed as velocities, climate change projections connect directly to survival prospects for plants and animals."
The study, by scientists at the Carnegie Institution, Stanford University, the California Academy of Sciences, and the University of California, Berkeley, combined information on current and projected future climate to calculate a "temperature velocity" for different parts of the world.
They found that mountainous areas will have the lowest velocity of temperature change, meaning that animals will not need to move very far to stay in the temperature range of their natural habitat. However, much larger geographic displacements are required in flatter areas such as flooded grasslands, mangroves and deserts, in order for animals to keep pace with their climate zone. The researchers also found that most currently protected areas are not big enough to accommodate the displacements required.
Plants and animals race for survival as climate change creeps across the globe
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