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Some 99% of the casualties linked to climate change, and over 90% of the economic losses, concern developing countries.
Four billion people worldwide live in zones considered vulnerable from an environmental perspective. And drought, heat waves, floods and severe storms are becoming more common in Australia, Europe and North America. However, the world’s poorest groups are worst hit today mainly because poverty increases exposure to danger.
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Most impacts are health related. Higher general temperatures cause climate-sensitive diseases, such as malaria, to spread faster and further. Increasing water shortages affect the spread and control of diarrhoea. While floods, droughts and unpredictable weather cause crop and livestock losses, reducing food supplies, and leading to hunger and increased malnutrition. In general, woman and children are worst affected.
Poor countries often lack safety infrastructure, or warning and rescue facilities in the face of stronger, less predictable severe weather. Extreme storms are capable of immense destruction, especially where population density is high. In May 2008, Cyclone Nargis claimed over 100,000 lives and 4 billion dollars worth of economic losses in Myanmar.
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Climate change has long been understood as a distant, environmental or future concern. Its impacts on human society have received much less attention. The Forum currently works to increase awareness about climate change, to assist policy-making that deals with it, and boost practical action to tackle it.
The root causes of climate change can only be dealt with through collective international action. This is because in the medium and long term all countries must act in unison to reduce or limit emissions and their increasing warming effect. For that reason, the ongoing United Nations negotiations for a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, which effectively expires in 2012, are the best current opportunity to reach a global agreement for containing climate change and ending the suffering it causes.
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Even a successful agreement, however, will take years to correct the current situation. Humanitarian, development and disaster reduction efforts, in particular, need to be increased and adapted in order to cope with the large-scale emerging burden of climate change.