Climate change to drive 1bn from homes: Study

Geneva: Climate change stands to drive as many as one billion people from their homes over the next fourdecades, the International Organisation for Migration said in a study on Tuesday.      The IOM report, launched on the second day of the international climate talks in Copenhagen, estimated 20 million people were made homeless last year by the suddenonset environmental disasters that are set to amplify as global warming increases.      But it found that few of the "climate refugees" are able to leave their countries, lacking the means and the ability totravel to wealthier places.      Instead, the report found the displaced people were moving in droves to alreadycrowded cities — putting extra pressure on the poorer countries at highest risk from environmental stress and degradation associated with climatic shifts.      "Aside from the immediate flight in the face of disaster, migration may not be an option for the poorest and most vulnerable groups," it said.      "In general, countries expect to manage environmental migration internally, with the exception of small island states that in some cases have already led to islands disappearing under water, forcing international migration."      The IOM cited a wide range of projections for numbers of people likely to be displaced. "Estimates have suggested that between 25 million to one billion people could be displaced by climate change over the next 40 years," the report said. However,it noted that the lowest projection was dated. The number of natural disasters has more than doubled in the past 20 years, and the IOM said desertification, water pollution and other strains would make even more of the planet uninhabitable as greenhouse gases keep building up. "Further climate change, with global temperatures expected to rise between 2 and 5 degrees centigrade by the end of this century, could have a major impact on the movement of people," the report supported by the Rockefeller Foundation said. AGENCIES  20m people made homeless by disasters in 2008  Most affected people can't cross borders, pile into cities