More than 30 million people were displaced last year by environmental and weather-related disasters across Asia, and the problem is likely to grow more serious as climate change exacerbates such problems, experts have warned.
Tens of millions of people are likely to be similarly displaced in the future by the effects of climate change, including rising sea levels, floods, droughts and reduced agricultural productivity. Such people are likely to migrate in regions across Asia and governments must start to prepare for the problems this will create, warned the Asian Development Bank.
The costs will be high — about US $ 40 billion — for adapting and putting in place protective measures — from sea walls to re-growing mangrove swamps (红树林沼泽) that have been cut down — that can help protect against the impacts of storm tides.
While large-scale climate-related migration is a gradual phenomenon, communities in Asia and the Pacific are already experiencing the consequences of changing environmental conditions, including more frequent severe storms and flooding,” the bank said last week. This could lead to a widespread crisis across the region in coming years if preparations are not made to deal with the current and probable future consequence.
Robert Dobias, climate change project chief at the Asian Development Bank, said that, at present, climate change is still a relatively small cause of migration, as economic causes are the most worrying and frightening, and as environmental disasters happen independently of global warning.
The Asian Development Bank warned that governments must start to make preparations now, because more extreme weather has already started to take effect, though the changes so far have not been so great in their impact. The bank is working on a report that will set out in detail the likely problems and suggest a range of potential policy changes to help deal with them.
25．Which of the following is closest in the meaning to the underlined word “exacerbates”?
A．Solves. B．Prevents. C．Worsens. D．Reduces.
26．Which question is answered in the passage?
A．Why climate change happens.
B．What preparations will be made as protective measures.
C．How local governments help people to migrate after climate change.
D．In which part of the globe climate-related migration is most likely to happen.
27．The Asian Development Bank helps deal with the migration problem by _________.
A．working on a report B．changing its migration policy
C．starting a climate change project D．lending money to the governments

25-27 CDA