No country will escape the effects of climate change.

That's a truism.

But some regions may "weather" the change better than others.

Taken as a whole both Europe and North America:

--Have adequate water resources though there could be local problems as in California and parts of Spain

--Are easily able to feed themselves.

By contrast China faces environmental catastrophe. It could find itself unable to provide potable water for its 1.3 billion people. India, with its still rapidly growing population, could also have problems in that regard.

Much of the third world, especially Africa with its burgeoning population, could be in even worse shape.

Far from having to support 9 billion people by 2050 the Earth may have a much smaller population than today's 6.5 billion because so many billions in China, India and Africa will have perished from hunger, thirst and consequent conflict.

That would leave Europe and North America dominating the planet.

And if I can think these thoughts then presumably so can the folk in the Pentagon and Brussels.

Australia with it's relatively small population should be OK provided we keep our defences strong, ready to repel the coming climate change refugees. I assume the strategists in Canberra are planning for these contingencies

I believe the discussions around climate change are comparable to the "smoking" debate of last century ... smoking kills, yet their are a myriad of reasons people continue to smoke. Climate change /global warming will also kill us, but their are a myriad of economic and social reasons for us to avoid changing for as long as possible.

Like the smoking debate, the outcome will be the same - an acceptance that we have to change our existing paradigm. But how much more damage will we do while this process of "change evolution" takes place.

Corri,

The issue seems to be as follows:

Climate change and the consequent regional catastrophes may actually be a net ADVANTAGE for some countries or regions.

If China and India were stopped in their tracks as global competitors and global population reduced by say 2 billion due to the deaths of a few billion Indians, Chinese and Africans, would that not benefit Europe and North America?

It requires a certain ruthlessness to think along these lines but ruthlessness has never been a problem for us.

Steven,

I believe ecosystems have a way of balancing themselves, and death is part of that cycle. If viewed impartially, what you say is realistic whether we actively pursue or, more likely, don't change our current practice. Earth's resources and reactions will force our hand one way or another, either via increasingly extreme climatic conditions with the resultant "collateral damage" or extended drought / flood cycles with decreasing food yields, increasing famine and therefore loss of life.

Most likely those countries least able to afford change will be hardest hit, such as the nations you've mentioned.

One thing is for sure, the faster we at a micro level manage our eco footprint the sooner we can impact the global change. After all global warming started locally!

Stevenlmeyer – I have read that in some models China will benefit from climate change due to an increase in rain fall in it inland.

I think it is tragic that climate change and or booming population growth will cause millions of refugee’s and possibly millions of deaths.

If millions do die we can partly blame our benign attitude which is giving them aid when they need it and providing vaccinations against many diseases. This has caused the booming populations in the third world which we now see. But due to lack of institutions there societies are mostly failures which has led to the baby boom which we see.

When it comes to aid we need to go the whole hog instead of just enough to sustain them.

The only issue I have with the whole climate change is;

Why is ANYONE anti a cleaner way for our species to exist?. The more people there are, the tougher it is on the environment. Isn't that a fact?. Why not clean up our act?. Our society is just plain wasteful. What's the problem with being more respectful of our environment.

I don't care about the contradicting arguments over Al Gore and his message. Isn't a change towards us being a species that coexists with our environment better, a good thing?