Oxfam Ireland has launched its new climate change campaign – ‘Climate Change Destroys Lives; Let’s Face It’ – with the publication of a new Oxfam report outlining the devastating human cost of climate change and the need for urgent action by governments to stop runaway climate change.
Shifting seasons are destroying harvests and causing widespread hunger, but this is just one of the multiple climate change impacts taking their toll on the world’s poorest people, concluded a new report launched by Oxfam to coincide with the launch of the campaign.
The report, ‘ Suffering the Science – Climate Change, People and Poverty’ , combines the latest scientific observations on climate change and evidence from the communities Oxfam works with in almost 100 countries around the world, to reveal how the burden of climate change is already hitting poor people hard. The report warns that without immediate action 50 years of development gains in poor countries will be permanently lost. It says that climate-related hunger could be the defining human tragedy of this century.
Suffering the Scienceoutlines evidence of how climate change is affecting every issue linked to poverty and development today including hunger, agriculture, health, labour, water, natural disasters and displacement.
Oxfam’s campaign, launched to coincide with the run-in to the global climate negotiations due to finish in Copenhagen this December, aims to put pressure on the Irish government to take an active role in pushing for a fair and adequate climate deal.
“With just five months to go we will be asking the government to stand up and be counted at the global climate negotiations. We cannot afford to wait any longer to address the devastating effects that climate change is having on poor people in the developing world,” said Jim Clarken, Chief Executive of Oxfam Ireland.
Many scientists are now sceptical that the world can limit global warming to 2°C because they do not believe that politicians are willing to agree the necessary cuts in carbon emissions, the report says. Two degrees is considered to be “economically acceptable” to rich countries; however, it would still mean a devastating future for 660 million people.