e last 100 years.
WWF issued its report to coincide with a weekend summit here to be attended by US President Barack Obama, Chinese President Hu Jintao and other Asia-Pacific leaders.
The summit takes place three weeks before crucial talks on a new world climate pact open in Copenhagen on December 7.
WWF said that on a “vulnerability” scale going up to 10, Dhaka rated nine points, and Manila and Jakarta eight each.
Calcutta and Phnom Penh received scores of seven each on the WWF danger scale, Ho Chi Minh City and Shanghai six each, Bangkok five, and Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong and Singapore four each.
Poorer Asian nations urgently need financial, technological and training support from industrialised countries to save lives, protect national assets and preserve the cities’ economic contributions, it said.
Mark Dia, the Manila-based deputy campaign director for Greenpeace in Southeast Asia, told AFP that the report showed “disaster management should be top of the agenda for the government.”
Tropical storm Ketsana dumped record amounts of rainfall over the Philippine capital in September, leaving more than 400 people dead and vast swathes of the city flooded for weeks.
WWF urged the leaders of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum to use their summit to promote strategies to reduce carbon emissions across the 21-member organisation.
In a communique to be issued at the end of their annual meeting Sunday, the APEC leaders are expected to call for sweeping emissions cuts and declare their support for a global deal at next month’s Copenhagen climate gathering.
In the short term, APEC will seek to open up trade in environmental goods and services, known as green technology, as part of efforts to fight climate change and achieve sustainable economic growth.
The December 7-18 Copenhagen talks are aimed at achieving a global deal to slash greenhouse gas emissions and ease the impact of climate change before the 2012 expiry of the Kyoto Protocol, which excludes the United States.
China’s Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said Thursday that it would seek a “fair and reasonable” result at Copenhagen but reiterated that rich nations must bear most of the burden for redressing global warming.
A trio of U.S. senators this week introduced a bill to spur solar manufacturing jobs in the United States.
Through additional tax credits, the legislation aims to encourage more U.S. companies to make solar equipment, creating jobs and building up the country’s clean energy economy.
Many “” from politicians and environmentalists to investors – have pinned great hopes on green jobs. Clean energy could create 850,000 manufacturing jobs in the United States, according to recent research Reuters reported this week.
The latest proposal could create 315,000 U.S. jobs along, according to Solar Energy Industries Association, which is pushing for the bill.
But would the extra tax incentives be enough to keep solar power companies producing in the United States?
A decade ago, the United States produced more than 40 percent of the world’s solar photovoltaic cells that convert sunlight into electricity. In 2008, the United States made only 5 percent of the world’s solar cells, according to the solar group.
Those numbers seem bleak. But the solar jobs landscape is not so black and white.
Chinese companies Suntech and Yingli have plans to start manufacturing in the United States. At the same time, the largest U.S. solar company First Solar has announced plans to open a massive plant in China and U.S.-based Evergreen Solar is speeding up its strategy to outsource to China.
Last week Evergreen Solar’s executives had to answer questions from analysts about their plans to move panel assembly to China from Massachusetts.
“There is a lot of capacity going in the ground in Asia. But I think as companies do their own homework and do cost comparison it is compelling that the costs in China or low “” low capital costs, low labor costs, low overhead costs,” said Evergreen Solar’s chief executive Richard Feldt on a conference call with analysts.
“And so I think it will