the report of the working group of the un's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, released on April 6, 2007, predicts a bleak future with severe effects in poor countries.

Increased water stress, rising droughts and floods and 40 per cent species extinction are the report's key concerns. The 2,500 experts body, after analysing over 1,000 studies, says the tropics and high latitudes will get wetter and the mid latitude and semi-arid regions will face drier years. Glacial melt in the Himalayas will increase. Africa will face increased water stress with North America witnessing increase in aggregate yields of rainfed agriculture by 5 to 20 per cent, it said. Fresh water availability in the larger basins will decrease, affecting more than a billion people by 2050 and 30 per cent of the global coastal wetlands will be lost.

The report calls for manifold adaptations at