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Seminar hosted in Bangkok on
"Addressing Climate Change in Asia: Impacts on Food, Fuel and People"
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Supported by the GMS-EOC, a seminar entitled "Addressing Climate Change in Asia: Impacts on Food, Fuel and People" was hosted on Wednesday 25th of September, at the ADB's Thailand Resident Mission.
Designed to inform regional action to promote climate solutions, the seminar was a launch space for 3 studies, commissioned by the ADB, investigating how climate change would impact agriculture, energy security and migration in Asia.
Draft versions of the studies were released on the sidelines of a major United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations on a new climate change treaty to succeed the Kyoto Protocol’s provisions, which expire in 2012.
The studies were introduced by Mr. Xianbin Yao, Director General and Chief Compliance Officer, Regional and Sustainable Development Department (RSDD), Asian Development Bank,
who recalled the imperative to "Think globally, but plan and decide locally", to an audience which included Thai Government Officials, civil society and others working to address the impacts of climate change.
Among the studies' findings is that the impacts of rising temperatures in Asia will fall disproportionately on the region's poor, and rural women from developing countries will be among the most affected groups given their dependence on subsistence crops, their limited access to resources, and their lack of decision-making power.
More than half of Asia's total population lives below the US$2 per day poverty line, and it is this sector of the population that tends to depend on rain-fed agriculture and live in settlements that are highly exposed to climate variability and change.
The agriculture, energy and migration studies were produced by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI); USA; The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), India; and the University of Adelaide, Australia, respectively.
Read more on the studies and their launch here
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