TOKYO, Oct 19: The head of a UN climate panel that shared the Nobel Peace Prize warned on Friday that Asia was particularly vulnerable to global warming, with the continent set for more disasters unless action is taken.

“Asia being the rapidly growing continent with the largest share of the human population located over here, clearly vulnerabilities in Asia are going to be of importance,” said Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Addressing a two-day environmental conference in Tokyo, the Indian scientist said Asia risked floods and diminished access to fresh water and food supply if global warming continued unabated.

“Poor communities are of course at the highest risk,” he said. “This is also because there is very limited adopted capacity.

“In the case of coastal areas, flooding of the residences of millions of people could take place in South, Southeast and East Asia.” He warned that the vital agricultural production of Asia’s densely populated delta regions would be in jeopardy if temperatures kept rising.

Pachauri’s panel, a network of 3,000 experts regarded as the world’s top scientific authority on global warming, shared this year’s Nobel Peace Prize with former US vice president turned environmental activist Al Gore.

Pachauri applauded the Nobel committee, which announced the award a week ago, for linking climate change to peace and stability in the world.

“I thought the Nobel Peace Prize committee has taken some of these factors into account,” he said.

“We already have several areas of the world where there is intense competition for water resources. If these become more scarce, then the danger of conflict obviously will increase, substantially.” The brutal conflict in Darfur has sometimes been referred to as the world’s first war triggered by climate change.

—AFP