The World Bank expressed concern on Wednesday about a shift in Latin American electricity generation towards coal and natural gas, saying it might be a factor in turning a region with low carbon emissions into one with above-average carbon usage.

A report on climate change and the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean found the region particularly vulnerable to climate change. It forecast 77m people could face water shortages because of the disappearance of many Andean glaciers by 2020 and warned of a sharp dieback of Amazon rainforest of 20 per cent to 80 per cent if temperatures rose by 2ºC to 3ºC.