Coral climate crisis puts 250 million at risk: U.N.

The green algae Caulerpa sertularioides grows around a coral in Costa Rica's Culebra Bay on the country's Pacific coast, in this picture taken in this August 26, 2007 file photo.

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - More than 250 million people risk losing their livelihoods because of dying tropical coral reefs in what a senior U.N. environmental economist said on Saturday was part of a double climate crisis facing the world.

"We forget that there are two emissions problems. The one that everyone is aware of and is doing something about is climate change," said Pavan Sukhdev of the U.N. Environment Programme on the sidelines of the world's largest climate talks.

"The second emissions problem is the emergency around coral reefs," he said.

"More than 250 million people are at risk seriously of their lifeblood going away because of the lack of fish on tropical coral reefs," he told reporters in Copenhagen.

Negotiators from nearly 200 countries are trying to seal the outlines of a broader climate pact that aims to sharply cut emissions of planet-warming greenhouse gases.

The leaders of more than 100 countries arrive next week hoping to overcome deep differences on who should cut emissions, by how much and who should pay.

Warming seas are causing corals to bleach, scientists say. Normally corals recover from bleaching episodes, but now reefs are dying, destroying fisheries, because oceans are absorbing growing amounts of CO2 and becoming increasingly acidic.

Sukhdev said millions of people in the Caribbean, Indonesia and elsewhere in Asia dependent on fishing risk being forced to move away from the coast -- in addition to people uprooted from coastal areas by rising seas.

Former fishing families who have to move will need food, new livelihoods and housing, he said.

Sukhdev pointed to a report backed by Prince Charles' Rainforest Project that said in October that financing of 15 to 25 billion euros ($22- $37 billion) between 2010-15 could lead to a 25 percent reduction in annual deforestation.

The report said that if payments were made, based on a system that monitored results and helped build up the capacity of developing countries to fight deforestation, the loss of forests could be curbed by about 3 million hectares (7.5 million acres) a year.

That could lead to an annual total emissions reduction of about 7 billion metric tones of carbon-dioxide-equivalent, a sizeable slice of mankind's yearly greenhouse gas emissions.

The U.N. climate panel says deforestation is responsible for about a fifth of mankind's greenhouse gas emissions, though some recent studies say the figure is closer to around 12 percent.

Sukhdev said replanting forests in developing countries was a quick and cheap way to help soak up some of mankind's CO2 emissions. Trees soak up CO2 as they grow and are a major natural carbon "sink" along with oceans.

He said the suggested financing of 15-25 billion euros could lock away or prevent CO2 emissions at a cost of as little as a few euros a tone of carbon dioxide. A tiny sum, he said, compared with the trillions spent on economic rescue packages.