Millions displaced by natural disasters last year, Associated Press, June 6, 2011, Lincoln Journal Star: “About 42 million people were forced to flee their homes because of natural disasters around the world in 2010, more than double the number during the previous year, experts said Monday. One reason for the increase in the figure could be climate change, and the international community should be doing more to contain it, the experts said. The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre said the increase from 17 million displaced people in 2009 was mainly due to the impact of ‘mega-disasters’ such as the massive floods in China and Pakistan and the earthquakes in Chile and Haiti…”

• Climate change help for the poor ‘has not materialised’, November 25, 2009, BBC News: “Rich countries pledged $410m (£247m) a year in a 2001 declaration - but it is now unclear whether the money was paid. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has accused industrialised countries of failing to keep their promise. The EU says the money was paid out in bilateral deals, but admits it cannot provide data to prove it. The money was pledged in the 2001 Bonn Declaration, signed by 20 industrialised nations - the 15 countries that then made up the European Union, plus Canada, Iceland, New Zealand, Norway and Switzerland. They said they would pay $410m per year until 2008. The date the payments were meant to start is unclear, but the total should be between $1.6bn and $2.87bn. The declaration said: ‘We are prepared to contribute $410m, which is 450 million euro, per year by 2005 with this level to be reviewed in 2008.’ But only $260m has ever been paid into two UN funds earmarked for the purpose, the BBC World Service investigation has found…”
• UK and France propose climate fund for poor, November 28, 2009, BBC News: “UK PM Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy have proposed a multi-billion-dollar fund to help developing nations deal with climate change. Mr Brown said the $10bn (£6bn) fund should also be used to help developing nations cut greenhouse gas emissions. Both spoke at the Commonwealth summit in Trinidad, the last major world forum before the global summit on climate change in Copenhagen on 7 December. Many Commonwealth members are island states threatened by rising sea levels. Mr Sarkozy, with UN chief Ban Ki-moon and Danish Prime Minister Prime Lars Loekke Rasmussen, is there to give weight to any climate change statement. The topic was the only issue on the Commonwealth summit’s agenda for the first day…”

Amid droughts and failed crops, a cycle of poverty worsens, By Mark Magnier, December 1, 2009, Los Angeles Times: “She stops for long stretches, lost in thought, trying to make sense of how she’s been left half a person. Sunita, 18, who requested that her family name not be used to preserve her chance of getting married, said her nightmare started in early 2007 after her father took a loan for her sister’s wedding. The local moneylender charged 60% annual interest. When the family was unable to make the exorbitant interest payments, she said, the moneylender forced himself on her, not once or twice but repeatedly over many months. ‘I used to cry a lot and became a living corpse,’ she said. Sunita’s allegations, which the moneylender denies, cast a harsh light on widespread abuses in rural India, where a highly bureaucratic banking system, corruption and widespread illiteracy allow unethical people with extra income to exploit poor villagers, activists say…”

Poor nations vow low-carbon path, By Richard Black, November 11, 2009, BBC News: “Poor countries considered vulnerable to climate change have pledged to embark on moves to a low-carbon future, and challenge richer states to match them. The declaration from the first meeting of a new 11-nation forum calls on rich countries to give 1.5% of their GDP for climate action in the developing world. It also calls for much tougher limits on greenhouse gas emissions. The forum was established by Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed to highlight the climate ‘threat’ to poor nations. The declaration contends that man-made climate change poses an ‘existential threat to our nations, our cultures and to our way of life, and thereby undermines the internationally protected human rights of our people…’”

• A bad climate for development, September 17, 2009, The Economist: “In late April Mostafa Rokonuzzaman, a farmer in south-western Bangladesh, gave an impassioned speech at a public meeting in his village, complaining that climate change, freakish hot spells and failed rains were ruining his vegetables. He didn’t know the half of it. A month later Mr Rokonuzzaman was chest-deep in a flood that had swept away his house, farm and even the village where the meeting took place. Cyclone Aila (its effects pictured above) which caused the storm surge that breached the village’s flood barriers, was itself a plausible example of how climate change is wreaking devastation in poor countries. Most people in the West know that the poor world contributes to climate change, though the scale of its contribution still comes as a surprise. Poor and middle-income countries already account for just over half of total carbon emissions (see chart 1); Brazil produces more CO2 per head than Germany. The lifetime emissions from these countries’ planned power stations would match the world’s entire industrial pollution since 1850. Less often realised, though, is that global warming does far more damage to poor countries than they do to the climate…”
• 4.5 M kids worldwide in danger of dying, By Ellalyn De Vera, September 18, 2009, Manila Bulletin: “At least 4.5 million children worldwide are in danger of dying from the impacts of climate change unless world leaders agree to increase funds that will mitigate the effects of climate change, non-government aid agency Oxfam International said. Oxfam issued the statement during the launch of its report titled ‘Beyond Aid’ released Wednesday, in time for the United Nations Climate Summit in New York on Sept. 22. The meeting will be followed by the G20 Summit on Sept. 24, where climate finance will be high on the agenda…”

Millions in Nepal facing hunger as climate changes, By Binaj Gurubacharya (AP), August 28, 2009, Bradenton Herald: ” Millions of people in Nepal face severe food shortages because global climate change has disrupted weather patterns and slashed crop yields in the Himalayan nation, an international aid agency warned Friday. Changing weather patterns have dramatically affected crop production in Nepal, leaving farmers unable to properly feed themselves and pushing them into debt, Oxfam International said in a report released in Katmandu…”

• Climate change shifting seasons is causing widespread hunger, By Louise Gray, July 6, 2009, The Telegraph: “The regular arrival of the rains or a dry period to harvest staple crops ensures the majority of people around the world can grow enough food to eat. But a new report by Oxfam has found that poor farmers in developing countries are increasingly finding the growing season is changing as a consequence of climate change…”
• Third World hardest hit by climate change, report finds, By Sue Bailey, July 6, 2009, The Globe and Mail: “The globe’s richest powerhouses must get serious about how First World pollution is spreading disease and hunger in the poorest countries, a new report says. Oxfam International is calling for drastic action on global warming as Prime Minister Stephen Harper and other Group of Eight leaders gather tomorow in Italy…”