N Zealand, Australia urged to take urgent action against climate change

WELLINGTON, July 27 (Xinhua) -- The independent development agency of Oxfam on Monday called on New Zealand and Australia to take urgent actions against climate change to prevent neighboring Pacific island countries becoming uninhabitable.

Millions of people from developing Pacific nations are facing increased risk from cyclones, storm surges, king tides and ecosystem destruction due to climate change, the development agency said in a report released on Monday.

"Without a significant effort by developed countries now, some island nations in the Pacific face the very real threat of becoming uninhabitable in the decades ahead," the report said.

People living in poorer Pacific nations have faced higher rates of malarial infection, more frequent flooding and were losing land and being forced to leave their homes, Oxfam said.

"It makes financial sense to act now, given that for every 1 NZ dollars spent on disaster preparedness and risk reduction, two to 10 dollars are saved in disaster response," it added.

The report called on New Zealand and Australia to reduce carbon emissions by 40 percent by 2020 and by 95 percent by 2050.

"The more frequent disasters caused by climate change will require Australia and New Zealand to respond, and the displacement of people in the Pacific due to rising sea levels will force them to look for new homelands," the report said.

By 2050, 8 million people in the Pacific Islands may need to find new places to live, along with 75 million people in the Asia-Pacific region.

The development agency supported a "polluter pays" scheme where New Zealand should pay 792 million NZ dollars (520 million U.S. dollars) and Australia 5.42 billion NZ dollars to help repair the environmental costs of developing their economies.

The report writers also called attention to research probing the link between climate change and health, specifically mentioning the spread of malaria and dengue fever.

In Papua New Guinea's Western Highlands, researchers had recorded a large jump in the number of reported cases of malaria, from 638 in 2000 to 4986 in 2005.

"For countries like Kiribati, Tuvalu, Tokelau, the Marshall Islands, Fiji, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea and the Federated States of Micronesia, climate change is not something that could happen in the future, but something they are experiencing now," Oxfam said.