Climate change is responsible for 3,00,00 deaths a year and is affecting 300 million people,a study has claimed. The first comprehensive study of the human impact of the global warming projects that increasingly severe heatwaves,floods,storms and forest fires will be responsible for as many as 500,000 deaths a year by 2030,making it the greatest humanitarian challenge the world faces. Climate-change disasters are also causing economic losses,amounting to more than USD 125 billion a year more than all the present world aid. The report came from former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's thinktank,the Global Humanitarian forum. By 2030,the report said,climate change could cost USD 600 billion a year. Kofi Annan,who launched the report here,said: "The world is at a crossroads. We can no longer afford to ignore the human impact of climate change. This is a call to the negotiators to come to the most ambitious agreement ever negotiated or to continue to accept mass starvation,mass sickness and mass migration on an ever growing scale." Rajendra Pachauri,Chair of the UN Inter-governmental panel on climate change,said "The scale of devastation is so great that it is hard to believe the truth behind it,or how it is possible that so many people remain ignorant of this crisis."
