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http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/39386/story.htmNEW DELHI - India, likely to be one of the countries worst-hit by global warming, is already ahead of most developing nations in putting in place measures to help it adapt to climate change, the World Bank said on Thursday.
Experts predict that the earth's temperature will rise by 2-3 degrees centigrade in the next 50 years if greenhouse gas emissions continue at current rates.
This will seriously affect the Indian subcontinent and result in more frequent and more severe natural disasters like floods and droughts, more disease and poor crop yields, they add.
On the sidelines of an international conference on climate change, the World Bank's lead environmental specialist for South Asia, Bilal Rahill, said despite the threats, India was ahead in adapting to climatic variability.
"Adaptation is the same as development as it is basically about improving people's ability to deal with adversity whether it be adverse weather conditions or poverty," Rahill said.
"India has a number of development programmes that have inherent, built-in adaptation aspects ... (and) has a lead as its been dealing with more climate variability than most developing nations."
Rahill told Reuters India was already implementing projects to improve water management to cope with erratic rains and build infrastructure in coastal areas in case of cyclones or flooding due to rising sea levels. But it still needed to do more.
According to a report on the economics of climate change by former World Bank chief economist Nicholas Stern published in October, mitigation by reducing emissions is not enough.
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