UN climate change chief warns of impact on poverty, hunger

GENEVA (AFP) — The UN's top climate change scientist on Thursday urged the world body to take greater account of the impact of global warming on hunger and poverty.

Rajendra Pachauri, the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said the world's poor would be the first to suffer from predicted increases in global temperatures, rainfall and extremes like drought and flooding.

"There'll be two types of impacts on poor and the hungry -- firstly the increases in temperature, because we've predicted an increase in heatwaves. This increase has health implications," he told journalists.

"The other major impact would be on agriculture -- and about two-thirds of the world lives in rural areas and the bulk of them are in developing countries," Pachauri added.

The Indian scientist underlined that even the most vulnerable in European countries with well-developed health care systems had struggled with heatwaves in ...