Raising dams would cost individual countries and regions billions of dollars. In the developing world, countless millions of people could lose their homes, if not their lives. Coastal catastrophes have already happened. In 1988 monsoon rains and tropical hurricanes flooded hundreds of square kilometres of Bangladesh, killing roughly two million people. Because of their long lifespan, trees are badly affected by environmental changes.
Many species depend on a relatively narrow range of climate and soil conditions.
For most types of trees, seeds cannot be carried far or fast enough to move with rapid shifts in climate zones. In mountain zones of Europe, over half the trees are already diseased, and climate change is hastening the death of forests. High temperatures will help insects to reproduce more quickly, and tree diseases will increase. In most cities, trees are already under stress from pollution and changing climatic conditions. City trees will suffer even more with global warming.