How will YOUR country cope with climate change?

14.01.2015 10:39

Climate change experts have released maps of the world revealing how prepared different countries are to cope with the effects of climate change.

In the maps, 192 countries are ranked by their ‘vulnerability’ and ‘readiness’, to produce an overall judgement on their fate.

The results reveal that Scandinavian countries and the UK are among the most likely to survive - but areas of sub-Saharan Africa will be hardest hit.

The maps were created by London-based company The Eco Experts, using data from the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, known as the ND-Gain Index.

They took into account location, terrain, pollution rates and national resources when calculating which countries would be most affected.

Countries like Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark score well on the scale.

But places like Central America, Africa and India all appear at risk from natural disaster - and are poorly equipped to cope, said The Eco Experts.

Jon Whiting, of The Eco Experts warned: ‘Hurricanes, earthquakes, blizzards, droughts and flooding are all real dangers for some of these areas, and this is compounded by a lack of national strategy to counteract the effects.’

Burundi, Chad, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo produced some of the lowest scores, meaning these countries will be the biggest victims of weather disasters.

The map is based on data compiled by the ND-Gain index, which has been monitoring 45 internal and external indicators of climate change exposure of 192 countries since 1992.

The index is built on two variables; ‘vulnerability’ and ‘readiness’ for which a country gets a separate mark for each. These scores tally up to produce an overall total indicating how a particular nation would fare.

On the scale, the country best equipped to cope with the effects of climate change was Norway. In fact, Norway has topped the ranking every year since the Index began in 1995.

‘Adaptation challenges still exist, but Norway is well positioned to adapt. Norway is the 4th least vulnerable country and the 5th most ready country,’ according to the ND-Gain Index website.

Second was New Zealand, third was Sweden, fourth was Finland and fifth Denmark. The UK came in seventh, followed by the US in eighth. Lower down, Ireland came in 17th and Russia in 32nd.

At the bottom of the table Chad was deemed the country that would suffer the most from climate change.

‘It has both a great need for investment and innovations to improve readiness and a great urgency for action,’ said the site.

It was followed by Eritrea, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Central Africa Republic.

On the site, detailed factors for each country can be viewed. These include the projected change of cereal yields, access to reliable drinking water and vulnerability to heatwave hazards.

(dailymail.co.uk)

ANN.Az