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The world's richest countries, which have contributed by far the most to the atmospheric changes linked to global warming, are already spending billions of dollars to limit their own risks from its worst consequences, like drought and rising seas.
But despite longstanding treaty commitments to help poor countries deal with warming, these industrial powers are spending just tens of millions of dollars on ways to limit climate and coastal hazards in the world's most vulnerable regions-most of them close to the equator and overwhelmingly poor.
Next Friday, a new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations body that since 1990 has been assessing global warming, will underline this growing climate divide, according to scientists involved in writing it-with wealthy nations far from the equator not only experiencing fewer effects but also better able to withstand them.
Two thirds of the atmospheric buildup of carbon dioxide, a heattrapping greenhouse gas that can persist in the air for centuries, has come in nearly equal proportions from the United States and Western European countries. Those and other wealthy nations are investing in windmillpowered plants that turn seawater to drinking water, in flood barriers and floatable homes, and in grains and soybeans genetically altered to flourish even in a drought.
In contrast, Africa accounts for less than 3 percent of the global emissions of carbon dioxide from fuel burning since 1900, yet its 840 million people face some of the biggest risks from drought and disrupted water supplies, according to new scientific assessments. As the oceans swell with water from melting ice sheets, it is the crowded river deltas in southern Asia and Egypt, along with small island nations, that are most at risk.
"Like the sinking of the Titanic, catastrophes are not democratic," said Henry I. Miller, a fellow with the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. "A much higher fraction of passengers from the cheaper decks were lost. We'll see the same phenomenon with global warming."
"The inequity of this whole situation is really enormous if you look at who's responsible and who's suffering as a result," said Rajendra K. Pachauri, chairman of the United Nations climate panel. In its most recent report, in February, the panel said that decades of warming and rising seas were inevitable with the existing greenhousegas buildup, no matter what was done about cutting future greenhouse gas emissions.
Many other experts insist this is not an eitheror situation. They say that cutting the vulnerability of poor regions needs much more attention, but add that unless emissions are curbed, there will be centuries of warming and rising seas that will threaten ecosystems, water supplies, and resources from the poles to the equator, harming rich and poor.
世界上一些最富裕的国家，显然应该对全球变暖所带来的气候变化承担大部分责任，而他们现在正花费数十亿美元来使自己免受气候变化带来的最严重后果的影响，如干旱和海平面升高。
尽管这些工业大国签订了长期的协约表示会全力帮助贫穷国家应对全球变暖，他们却仅仅花了数千万美元以减少发生在世界上最无防御能力地区的气候和海洋灾难，这些地区大部分靠近赤道并且极端贫困。
下个星期五，气候变化政府间委员会将会发表一份新的报告。这个委员会从1990年开始一直从事全球变暖现象的评估工作。据参与写作这份报告的科学家说，报告将强调日益成型的气候格局，即那些远离赤道的富裕国家不仅很少遭受气候变化带来的灾难，而且能更好地防御这些灾难。
二氧化碳是一种防热扩散的温室气体，能在空气中停留几百年。而大气中三分之二的二氧化碳气层，几乎以相同的比例来自于美国和西欧国家。这些国家与其他的富国正投资兴建能将海水转化为饮用水的风能工厂、防洪堤、可漂流房屋和经过基因改良的谷物和大豆，它们即使在干旱中也能蓬勃生长。
与之对照的是，据新的科学评估，从1990年以来，非洲国家排放的二氧化碳不到全球燃料燃烧排放的二氧化碳气体总量的3%，但是8.4亿非洲人民却要面对由干旱和供水混乱带来的威胁。由于冰片融化，海洋水位增加，位于南亚和埃及的人口密集的河流三角洲以及一些小岛国，面临的危险最大。
亨利•米勒是斯坦福大学胡佛研究所的成员，他说：就像泰坦尼克号的沉没一样，灾难没有民主可言，低价舱有更多的旅客都被淹没了。在全球变暖这一问题上我们能看到同样的现象。
联合国气候小组的主席Rajendra K. Pachauri说：如果你看一下谁该为气候变化负责任，谁在为之受苦，这种格局的不平等真的是很巨大的。在二月份的最新报告中，联合国气候小组宣告，不管采取什么措施来减少未来温室气体的排放量，数十年的海洋升高变暖将不可避免，因为已经有现今温室气体层的存在。
许多其他专家坚持说这不是一个二选一的情况。他们认为减少贫穷地区的易受灾程度需要予以更多关注，并说如果温室气体的排放得不到控制，那么海洋将升高和变暖数百年，由此将会对生态系统、水供应和从两极到赤道的所有资源构成威胁，从而危害所有国家。
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