Human Development Report says climate change first victims are the poor
Building on the recently-released UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Synthesis Report, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) 2007/2008 Human Development Report (HDR), entitled Fighting climate change: Human solidarity in a divided world, was presented to the UN Climate Change Conference to set out a pathway for climate change negotiations in Bali, Indonesia, and stresses that a narrow ten-year window of opportunity remains to put it into practice.
Published annually since 1990, the 18th HDR was launched in Jordan under the patronage of H.R.H. Princess Basma Bint Talal on Sunday, 16th December 2007. The event included statements by Mr. Luc Stevens, UN Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative, Suhair Al Ali, Minister of Planning and International Cooperation and Khaled Al Irani, Minister of Environment.
This year’s Report considers climate change as the defining human development challenge of the 21st Century. Failure to respond to that challenge will stall and then reverse international efforts to reduce poverty. The poorest countries and most vulnerable citizens will suffer the earliest and most damaging setbacks, even though they have contributed least to the problem. Looking to the future, no country –however wealthy or powerful- will be immune to the impact of global warming.
The Human Development Report shows that climate change is not just a future scenario. Increased exposure to droughts, floods and storms is already destroying opportunities and reinforcing inequality. Meanwhile, there is now overwhelming scientific evidence that the world is moving towards the point at which irreversible ecological catastrophe becomes unavoidable. Business-as-usual climate change points in a clear direction: unprecedented reversal in human development in our lifetime, and acute risks for our children and grandchildren.
There is a window of opportunity for avoiding the most damaging climate change impacts, but that window is closing: the world has less than a decade to change course. Actions taken –or not taken- in the years ahead will have a profound bearing on the future course of human development. The world lacks neither the financial resources nor the technological capabilities to act. What is missing is a sense of urgency, human solidarity and collective interest.
As the 2007/2008 Report argues, climate change poses challenges at many levels. In a divided, but ecologically interdependent world, it challenges all people to reflect upon how we manage the environment of the one treasure that we all share: planet Earth. It challenges us to reflect on social justice and human rights across countries and generations. It challenges political leaders and people in rich nations to acknowledge their historic responsibility for the problem, and to initiate deep and early cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. Above all, it challenges the entire human community to undertake prompt and strong collective action based on shared values and a shared vision.”
All countries included in the HDI are classified into three clusters by achievement in human development: high human development (with an HDI of 0.800 or above), medium human development (0.500-0.799) and low human development (less than 0.500).
The 2007/2008 Report HDI ranks 177 countries for the 2005 figures, the most recent year of available data. Jordan for the 2nd year in a row ranks 86 although its HDI has again progressed slightly from 0.760 last year to 0.773 this year, which places Jordan in the “middle human development” category.
The Report also includes the Human Poverty Index (HPI)*[i], which focuses on the proportion of people below a threshold level in basis dimensions of human development. The HPI ranking for Jordan is 11th among 108 countries as compared to 11th among 102 countries in the 2006 Report.
The Report's Gender Development Index (GDI) ranks Jordan 80 among 157 countries, which in comparison with last year’s ranking of 69 among 136 countries it appears that the country has dropped greatly in rank. In fact with the GDI value of 0.760 this year in comparison with last year’s 0.747 Jordan made a slight progress. The drop in ranking mainly was due to the entry of new countries in the GDI data this year. The GDI is the gender-related development index using the same indicators as the HDI but also capturing inequalities in achievements between women and men.
[i] * This index excludes the high human development countries
More on the precedings of the launch: