OTTAWA - The globe's richest powerhouses must get serious about how First World pollution is spreading disease and hunger in the poorest countries, says a new report.
Oxfam International is calling for drastic action on global warming as Prime Minister Stephen Harper and other Group of Eight leaders gather Tuesday in Italy.
"We need to stop harming and start helping," says the report "Suffering the Science: Climate Change, People and Poverty."
"It is in the tropics where the bulk of humanity lives -- many of them in poverty -- that climate change is hitting now and hitting hardest," it says.
"Almost every observation and prediction about health, food security, water shortage, natural disasters, famine, drought and conflict is worsening at an alarming rate."
The report pairs the latest global-warming science with on-the-ground stories from people behind the statistics. It draws on updates from 2,500 scientists who met in March in Copenhagen to present the latest wide-ranging data on climate change.
Scientific consensus is now firming up to conclude that average global temperatures are indeed rising, says the report.
Mark Fried, spokesman for Oxfam Canada, says Harper must help fill what the agency describes as a vacuum of world leadership.
"We have seen that climate change is already causing tremendous suffering across the developing world."
"Crop failure has become common in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia due to drought and flood. That has contributed to the number of people who go to bed hungry every night."
Extreme weather in the form of deadly cyclones and hurricanes wreak increasing havoc each year.
And the slow but steady rise of the world's thermometer also means disease-carrying mosquitoes and blackflies have spawned "dengue fever and malaria in places where previously it was not known," Fried said.
Cases of malaria have even spread throughout parts of Russia.
"Canada can't act as if we're not affected by this. It's our pollution that is helping to cause the problem.
"He's at the G8 this week," Fried said of the prime minister. "Mr. Harper should take it on as his responsibility to make sure Canada's response is appropriate."
Ottawa's commitment of $100 million last year to help developing countries adapt to warmer temperatures was welcome, Fried said.
"But it's not nearly enough."
Oxfam estimates the poorest nations will need about $150 billion a year to adjust farming techniques, purify new water sources and increase food production.
"We've seen that the G8 leaders act with tremendous alacrity when they acknowledge the depth of a crisis," Fried said. "For the financial crisis, they moved quickly and dramatically and came up with trillions of dollars to bail out banks and provide more credit."
Oxfam says First World countries must cut their greenhouse gases by at least 40 per cent from 1990 levels by 2020. And by 2050, all countries must have reduced global emissions by at least 80 per cent below 1990 levels.
Such action just might avoid a global heat increase of more than 2C. Any additional increase could have "catastrophic" ramifications as glaciers melt and rising seas swamp coastal regions, Oxfam says.
In Canada, the Harper government has been slammed by environmental critics who say its "piecemeal" approach is badly lacking.
The Conservatives have repeatedly rejigged their climate-change plan since 2006 under three different environment ministers.
They've proposed a complex mix of regulations, a cap-and-trade system, green-technology investments and credits for companies that cut their emissions.
The Tory plan stops well short, however, of the cuts below 1990 levels urged by Oxfam and environmental groups. It pledges to lower greenhouse gases by just 20 per cent by 2020 from 2006 levels -- which were significantly higher than in 1990.
Still, the government will invest more than $2 billion over the next five years for new technologies that could help capture and store carbon pollution, said Harper spokesman Dimitri Soudas.
"Our government is investing in promising new technologies that will provide long-term results."
