"With the leadership of the governors who are co-hosting this event and the exciting new national leadership of President-Elect Obama, we are optimistic about the future in addressing climate change.
"We have two major tasks ahead: to help those suffering from serious climate impacts today and to help prevent even more catastrophic consequences in the future by reducing emissions. We must help those who are the most vulnerable adapt to the new climate reality by building climate resilience while at the same time working to reduce the prospects of further damage and destruction by reducing our own greenhouse gas emissions. We can and we must do both.
"We are confronted with enormous challenges. With these also come enormous opportunities, including the possibility for a new climate resilient, green economy. President-Elect Obama should be applauded for making climate change a priority for his administration. His address today is an important signal that his administration will vigorously re-engage in international climate negotiations and provide long overdue US leadership on global warming. We look forward to working with the President-Elect and his administration to tackle these enormous challenges."
]]>?We applaud the efforts of Senator Boxer to advance the Climate Security Act. This landmark piece of legislation is a significant step forward in Congressional action on climate change. We especially appreciate Senator Boxer?s leadership on addressing the human impacts of climate change, which pose one of the greatest threats in the 21st century to the lives and livelihoods of billions of people who live in poverty.
?We are pleased that Senator Boxer?s substitute amendment to the Climate Security Act ensures funding to help poor people adapt to the unavoidable consequences of climate change. As this bill recognizes, it is critical that funding be provided to actively engage local communities in the most vulnerable countries around the world. The bill also takes a step toward promoting a sustainable energy pathway for people around the world.
?We applaud the commitment to substantially increase international adaptation funding over the lifetime of the bill. Efforts to address the already serious impacts of climate change on vulnerable communities?including floods, drought, and disease?are desperately needed as soon as possible. We look forward to working with Senator Boxers and other senators to strengthen the bill by significantly increasing funding for this critical need before 2018.
?Additionally, the emissions reduction strategy should be strengthened to ensure that greenhouse gas reductions are in line with what the scientific consensus says is needed to avoid catastrophic consequences for poor people. The bill could also do more to guarantee that low-income energy consumers and vulnerable communities in the United States are adequately protected.?
?The Senate has an opportunity to address the climate crisis for poor communities around the world. That opportunity should be seized.?
]]>Dedicated to finding lasting solutions to poverty and injustice, Oxfam America has undertaken a campaign to increase the climate preparedness of poor communities and arrive at equitable international solutions to the climate crisis. The Rockefeller Foundation?s grant will support Oxfam?s work to build a powerful advocacy effort to promote US government policies that provide funding for climate resilience and promote fair allocation of resources in the United States and other countries.
?The Rockefeller Foundation is proud to support Oxfam?s innovative work as part of our $70 million initiative to strengthen local resilience to the global climate crisis,? said Judith Rodin, the Foundation?s president. ?Oxfam?s advocacy will inform and inspire individual, institutional, and community efforts to better prepare for and recover from climate disruptions around the world.?
?While least responsible for causing climate change, poor people bear the brunt of its impacts,? said Raymond C. Offenheiser, president of Oxfam America. ?People living in developing countries are 20 times more likely to be affected by climate-related disasters compared to those living in the industrialized world, and nearly two billion people in developing countries were affected by climate-related disasters in the 1990s alone. If we do not assist vulnerable communities in building resilience and adapting to climate impacts, the costs we face will be measured not only in dollars but also in lives lost.?
Vulnerable communities in the United States are also facing increased threats from severe weather events, as well as health impacts that disproportionately affect poor people. The estimates of how climate change will worsen conditions around the world are disturbing. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, as many as 250 million people in Africa alone will face climate-induced water scarcity by 2020. In South Asia, the 17 million people who live on sandbanks in Bangladesh?s river basins could be homeless by 2030 as increasing Himalayan melt water floods their homes.
?Communities around the world are already showing resiliency ? early action is being taken to reduce the negative impacts of climate change being felt now,? said Offenheiser. ?We?ve seen it in projects ranging from planting drought resistant crops to building homes and schools on raised foundations, which are all essential for the poor to survive this global challenge. We?ve also seen it in the Gulf Coast of the US, where communities are rebuilding in ways that increase preparedness for future climate-related disasters. But there are limits to what communities can achieve alone, and they need support.?
The Rockefeller Foundation grant will help strengthen Oxfam?s efforts to build new constituencies and use innovative media tools to engage the US public on climate resilience issues. Oxfam will work with African American, Latino and women?s groups, as well as experts on issues such as public health and security. Since climate-related disasters will further stretch already strained governmental and non-governmental humanitarian assistance resources, the Rockefeller Foundation grant will also support original research focused on the ways in which US policy and deployment of resources will have to change to address the impacts of climate change both internationally and domestically, including strategies to reduce disaster risk and to engage local communities in disaster response planning.
?Oxfam brings a unique value to the climate change debate, including our public outreach and constituency building, our campaign and policy expertise, our knowledge built from on-the-ground operations in developing countries and in low-income communities in the US, and our work with the private sector,? said Offenheiser. ?The Rockefeller Foundation?s commitment to working on climate change resiliency issues with a focus on public outreach and federal policy change makes the Foundation an ideal partner as we build alliances and reach out to key constituencies.?
]]>In a new report released today, ?Turning Carbon into Gold,? Oxfam said there are ways already available to raise tens of billions of dollars that are linked to emissions reduction schemes. These would ensure that those countries most responsible for emissions, and that can afford to pay, would shoulder the bulk of the obligations. At least $50 billion per year is needed to fund adaptation in developing countries, with more necessary if a new climate change deal is inadequate to keep global warming to below 2ï¾°C.
?With a global financial crisis unfolding, these mechanisms could raise enough money from polluters without governments having to dip into national treasuries,? said Heather Coleman, Oxfam?s Senior Climate Change Policy Advisor and author of the report. "Many negotiators agree this is one of the more practical approaches. Billions of dollars can be raised and invested to prevent future climate change and to help poor people adapt to the negative impacts of global warming.?
The most effective and fair approach for generating adaptation financing is to link into the emissions-reduction system that would form a core part of a post-2012 agreement, where ?international emissions units? are allocated to rich countries. Oxfam says that a portion of these units must be auctioned rather than given away free to countries.
Oxfam estimates that more than $50 billion could be raised each year by 2015 by auctioning just 7.5 per cent of rich countries? international emissions units. This money should be handed to a new multilateral adaptation-finance mechanism under the UNFCCC. Other new finance mechanisms within the aviation and shipping sectors could generate another $28 billion—$12 billion from aviation and $16.6 billion from shipping annually—just from rich countries.
?Helping vulnerable people cope with the effects of climate change is desperately needed today because they are already face increasingly severe and ever-worsening climate change impacts,? said Coleman.
Poor countries need help to build up their resilience by, for example, upgrading national flood early-warning systems, planting mangrove ?bio-shields? along coasts to diffuse storm waves and growing drought-tolerant crops. If countries fail to adapt to the new reality of climate change, they will suffer far greater damage from floods, droughts and hurricanes, and at much higher cost, both in human and financial terms.
?It is extremely important for negotiators in Poznan to reach a broad understanding about how best to raise adaptation money because they have paid lip-service to the issue for too long. It is a vital part of the overall deal—a litmus test of how serious rich countries are in tackling the problem,? Coleman said.
?Poor people around the world bear the brunt of climate change and yet they are least responsible for global warming,? said Coleman. ?Even during tempestuous financial times, rich countries can and should help poor people cope. We cannot afford to exchange a short-term saving for a long-term disaster.?
]]>The international agency blames rich countries for the inaction during the 12 days of negotiations. They arrived empty-handed and unwilling to engage in constructive discussions to move further towards a global deal in Copenhagen next December.
?The lack of progress in Poznan merits outrage ? most of all from the millions of poor people already experiencing the devastating impacts of climate change. They cannot afford delay,? said Senior Oxfam Executive Barry Coates. ?This inaction is at odds with the urgency of the crisis and the ambition voiced at Bali. Instead of motoring along the Bali Road Map, political leaders have been asleep at the wheel. They must wake up and take action immediately, as they have left themselves with a huge amount to do to secure a global deal at Copenhagen next year.?
Oxfam says that a deal in Copenhagen next December is not only possible but more urgent and necessary than ever. ?In the coming year, rich countries must stop floundering and demonstrate commitment and leadership at the highest levels,? said Coates. ?A lack of will from Canada and Japan, attempts by Russia to frustrate progress behind the scenes, and the EU?s lack of leadership must change. The US, a lame duck in the negotiations in Poznan, must step up a gear to make up for their eight-year absence.?
Developing countries put forward important proposals, including Mexico?s bold announcement of plans to halve its emissions by 2050. But rich countries did not respond. The issue of helping developing countries reduce their emissions has been identified for a decade, yet proposals on how this could be financed and supported by technology transfer are still lacking.
There was important progress on the Adaptation Fund, which was created to help vulnerable communities adapt to climate change. But this is only a small part of the overall solution that poor people require. ?Here in Poznan, the negotiators looked into the money box, but it is still almost empty, less than 1% of what is needed,? said Coates.
Negotiators in Poznan agreed on the crucial issues of accountability, effectiveness and control over the money available to poor countries for urgent adaptation needs. But big-picture financing questions were left unanswered. At least $50 billion a year is needed to help poor people face the impacts of a changing climate according to Oxfam?s estimates, and far more if emissions are not cut fast and far enough.
?It is irresponsible that rich countries should use the financial crisis as an excuse. The amounts of funding required are a tiny fraction of the finance bail-outs,? said Coates. ?And solutions to the financial crisis and the climate crisis are not mutually exclusive. In fact, urgently addressing the climate crisis could boost our global economy through clean technology and green jobs. These negotiations are not about politics ? they are about people?s lives. Delays will kill.?
]]>In his testimony before the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, Jim Lyons, Oxfam America?s vice president for policy and communications, called climate change one of the greatest challenges to efforts to promote development and reduce global poverty, and stressed "the costs of failing to act to address both the already realized effects of global warming and the need to dramatically reduce carbon emissions to limit the future effects of climate change are substantial and rapidly growing." Selections from his testimony follow:
"In our operations spanning Africa, Latin America, East Asia and the United States itself, our staff and partners are already responding to the serious impacts of climate change, from increasingly severe weather events to water scarcity. Moreover, as the science indicates, poor and vulnerable communities around the world will increasingly bear the brunt of the consequences of global warming, threatening the lives of millions of people and undermining global stability and security.
"People living in developing countries are 20 times more likely to be affected by climate-related disasters compared to those living in the industrialized world, and nearly two billion people in developing countries were affected by climate-related disasters in the 1990s alone.
"The threats that climate change poses to global poverty reduction and development are both broad and deep. Climate change will have ramifications throughout the entire economic, political, and social fabric of developing countries in ways that will hardly be limited to the arena we usually think of as environmental. The recent rapid increase in world food prices illustrates the human consequences of food scarcity that will be exacerbated by climate change?and may already be related to climate impacts in some cases.
"Global stability and security will be undermined by increasing migration and refugee crises, by conflicts over ever-scarcer natural resources, and by economic destabilization as poverty and food insecurity grow. Our national interest will not be well-served by a failure to tackle the powerful ripple effects that climate change will cause in some of the most politically sensitive parts of the world.
"The US must acknowledge the enormous costs that a failure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will impose on us in the future, and we must therefore act to reduce our emissions substantially. Yet even with significant cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, we must also recognize the costs that would come from a failure to immediately address the climate change impacts being felt today. If we do not assist vulnerable communities to build resilience and adapt to climate impacts, the costs we face will be measured not only in dollars but also in lives lost.
"As the saying goes, the best way to get out of a hole is to stop digging. As leading experts and scientists have warned, we need to stop contributing to our own demise by substantially reducing our greenhouse gas emissions. At the same time, we must invest in measures to help adapt to climate change and build greater resiliency for populations and communities most vulnerable to its consequences. This is not simply a matter of moral and ethical importance, but one with important social, economic and global security consequences."
]]>?For the millions of poor people already living with the disastrous consequences of climate change, this G8 is a significant opportunity not to be missed,? said Antonio Hill, Oxfam spokesperson. ?We don?t need more haggling or finger-pointing. We need urgent action to ensure emissions peak in the next few years. Without it, decades of progress in the fight against poverty will be undone.?
?Any emissions reductions target for 2050 is a pipe dream without action now,? Hill added. ?Canada, the US, and Japan are holding the world hostage on 2020 targets ? and poor people are paying the price.? China, India and all other developing countries already agreed in Bali to do their fair share. Major developing countries and the four European G8 members agree 2020 targets are a benchmark for success at this G8.
Oxfam acknowledged the new Climate Investment Funds could help poor countries adapt to changes that are now inevitable, but said it is a drop in the bucket and will be taken away from aid money to fund health and education. Ethiopia?s immediate climate adaptation needs alone will cost US$800 million, the agency said. Besides the new funds, rich countries have pledged only US$170 million to the UN?s adaptation fund for all of the 49 Least Developed Countries.
Oxfam decried the imbalance between the G8?s new clean technology fund (US$4 or $5 billion) and its adaptation fund (US$500 million). ?The G8?s priorities are out of whack,? said Jeremy Hobbs, executive director of Oxfam International. ?Billions for their own companies to fund technology, and peanuts for the poorest to adapt. They talk of a promise to reduce emissions by a date when none of them will be alive, yet refuse to address the next few years when they can make a difference and which are absolutely crucial.?
]]>Oxfam?s report, "Climate Wrongs and Human Rights", sets out a new vision for a rights-based approach to climate change policymaking and highlights where current climate change negotiations are far from delivering what?s needed. Oxfam is submitting the report to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, which is now reviewing the relationship between international human rights and climate change.
?People have an inherent right to a safe, secure, and healthy life, but this right is being threatened by the global climate crisis,? said Raymond C. Offenheiser, president of Oxfam America. ?Carbon emissions from industrialized countries have human and environmental consequences. As a result, climate change is violating the basic human rights of millions of the world?s poorest people to life, security, food, health and shelter.?
The organization called on climate change policies at national and international levels to be based on existing human rights principles.
?National and international leaders must recognize and address the harm to people occurring today and that will continue as a result of climate change,? said Offenheiser. ?The principles of human rights provide a strong foundation for policy making, as all states must respect, protect and fulfill human rights, and these principles must be put at the heart of a global deal to tackle global climate change.?
But current negotiations are currently off track to deliver the needed policies, according to Oxfam. The report asserts that adaptation financing for poor countries is being woefully under-resourced and that rich countries are failing to deliver sufficient finance and technology to help poor countries shift to low-carbon pathways and realize their right to development. Developed countries, led by the G8, are proposing merely to halve global emissions by 2050, when a cut of at least 80% in emissions by 2050 is necessary to prevent a catastrophic 2ï¾°C temperature increase that is likely to cause widespread violations of rights.
?If international negotiations do not deliver needed remedies for ongoing human rights violations caused by climate change, poor countries may be forced to explore other options, such as the possibility of litigation,? said Offenheiser. ?Rich country polluters in developed countries have been aware of their liability for many years now. If they fail to cut emissions and help people now, they could face legal action later.?
The authors of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights could never have imagined having to deal with such a complex global challenge as climate change, so human right laws and institutions must evolve fast to keep up, according to Oxfam. While lawyers should push to have international courts recognize future injury and joint liability for climate-change damage, existing human rights principles are clearly sufficient to guide rich countries? policies to cut their emissions and finance adaptation.
?Urgently cutting emissions is the only way to respect and protect human rights from being violated by the impacts of climate change, and funding adaptation for the poorest people is the only remedy for those whose human rights have already been violated,? said Offenheiser.
]]>“This new text threatens to drive discussions off the road and into a ditch,” said Antonio Hill, Oxfam’s senior adviser on climate change. “The Bush Administration proposes to strip the most important elements out of this agreement. Global emissions are still rising, and voluntary cuts by rich countries just won’t work. Poor people will suffer the terrible consequences of continued delay.”
Ministers of 189 countries are seeking to hammer out a final deal in the UN climate change conference. Oxfam calls for developing countries, the EU and others to reject the US proposal and hold fast to binding targets and financing for adaptation and technology, urgently needed by the world’s poorest people.
Since the start of the negotiations, Ministers from both rich and poor countries pushed for real action on climate change that would put poor people first. Meanwhile the US, backed by Canada and Japan, has continued to demand that developing countries take on targets, while withholding commitments to address financing and technology for adaptation for the countries that need it most. But it is the responsibility of rich countries to move first and fastest, since they created the vast majority of historical emissions.
“Developing countries, who are most vulnerable to climate impacts, have demonstrated tremendous commitment, flexibility and assertiveness in these talks, but at the eleventh hour, this goodwill has been subverted by the Bush Administration,” continued Hill. “The challenge of climate change is too huge to wait for laggard governments to fall in line. Progress here in Bali is crucial.”
While US negotiators feign cooperation on one of the key elements in Bali—a negotiation track that ends in 2009—the timing and content of last night’s proposal demonstrate this is simply a ploy to carry on with business as usual, according to Oxfam.
“This position ironically comes at a time of hope, with last week’s historic motion in the US Senate,” said Hill. “The will and public concern of Americans to take the strong action needed on climate change is clear. But American delegates here in Bali are undermining prospects for similar progress internationally.”
]]>The US and EU have billed their proposal to eliminate tariffs and non-tariff trade barriers on a list of 43 climate-friendly goods as bold and new, but according to Oxfam, it is neither.
“The UN conference on climate change is being used as a pretext to dust off old proposals that haven’t gotten anywhere at the WTO,” said Oxfam spokesperson Barry Coates. “The EU and the US are passing around old wine in new bottles, but developing countries aren’t fooled.”
The list of goods proposed for liberalization includes products relating to wind, solar, and clean coal energy technologies, drawn from a list of in a recent World Bank study. The proposal also seeks to eliminate tariffs on an additional list of 150 environmental goods, as previously submitted by OECD countries in the context of current WTO negotiations, such as all laboratory equipment. The proposal goes further to include very ambitious objectives in services liberalization, calling for a binding of existing levels of market access and national treatment as well as new liberalization on a large number of services.
“Similar proposals have been floated in Doha negotiations by the US and the EU before, but discussion at the technical level in the WTO negotiations has been unable to resolve the difficulties inherent in such a list based on approach,” said Coates. “Liberalization of goods and services in developing countries, including in the environmental sector, has been the modus operandi for the US and the EU in the Doha round, while steadfastly refusing to undertake the reform of their unfair trade practices.”
Many of the products and services on the list are from developed countries and have uses far beyond that of environmental benefit and certainly beyond greenhouse gas reductions. Green technologies developed in rich countries are usually too expensive and not the most appropriate for developing countries. Furthermore, the opening of sectors such as sanitation, as included in this proposal, has often resulted in poor quality of services and little if any improvement in affordable access for poor communities.
“This proposal attempts to perpetuate the perception that the climate change challenge at the WTO can be easily addressed through promoting trade in a select few goods and services,” said Coates. “Any liberalization of environmental goods and services has to be debated within the context of development, be pro-poor, and meet defined objectives for addressing climate change without undermining the policy space of developing countries.”
For these negotiations to deliver an appropriate pro-poor outcome, a broader, more sustainable development dimension must be undertaken, one that is not based solely on trade liberalization, according to Oxfam. This includes ensuring the reflection of the principle of special and differential treatment and less than full reciprocity.
“Ensuring that clean technologies are effectively and sustainably transferred to developing countries—with appropriate policy measures to support adoption, adaptation, research and development, and product innovation—is the way to go,” continued Coates. “But so far, we’ve only had broken promises on finance, broken promises on technology transfers, and overly restrictive intellectual property rights.”
]]>"Bali has for the first time drawn up a roadmap for all countries to tackle climate change. But a handful of powerful countries have relegated the overwhelming scientific evidence to a footnote. The Bush Administration—dragging Canada, Japan and Russia in tow—has thrown away the compass and is trying to force us all to take the journey in a gas-guzzling 4x4, not the solar-powered speedster that the world urgently needs."
"The Bali result sets the stage for addressing fairness—all countries will have to limit emissions. But rich countries will have to kick the carbon habit first and poor countries need to see them do it. A door has been held opened for the US to join. The danger is that developing countries will be forced through the same door."
"Without a clear range for the global emissions cuts needed, this deal fails to keep us from the brink of exceeding 2°C of warming. Far from the negotiating halls of Bali, poor people waist-high in floods and children malnourished by failed harvests will demand to know, why did world leaders not see what we face and act urgently to stop it?"
"This outcome is a clear call to the citizens of the United States, Canada, Japan and Russia. Demand more. Only you can push your governments to deliver justice for poor people facing the next drought, flood or cyclone."
"Developing countries came to Bali ready to talk, willing to listen, but also demanding to be heard. A handful of the richest nations—led by the Bush Administration—have rebuffed their will and sapped the strength of what Bali had to offer. It's a deep insult to the world's poorest people."
"All the countries of the world are now united around delivering the Bali Roadmap by 2009, despite repeated US moves to hollow out these talks. But the level of ambition in the agreement still does not match the urgent need. The cost of not going far enough will be felt a long way from the air-conditioned halls of this luxury hotel. It will be paid in poor countries, by women and men forced to reap the failed harvests of our collective inaction."
"At long last the UN climate talks have started to grapple with the devastating impacts climate change is already having on the world's poorest people. Coping with these impacts comes at a price that rich polluters must pay. Under pressure from developing countries, Bali has delivered clear progress: a fund for adaptation is now in place and all countries agree that more money must be raised. But with estimated costs exceeding $50 billion annually, we now need to see rich countries put some serious money forward."
]]>Tense negotiations over the last few weeks have exposed disagreement amongst governments, with some countries, including Italy and Canada, reluctant even to reiterate promises made two years ago in Gleneagles to increase aid to poor countries, and others, led by the US, blocking progress on climate change.
Negotiations on the Africa communiqué were not concluded last week as planned, and emergency discussions between G8 officials are being hastily scheduled for early next week.
Max Lawson, Senior Policy Advisor at Oxfam said: "Talks are going down to the wire and it is astounding that the G8 may not even be willing to reiterate the pledges they made in 2005 to increase aid for Africa. They are failing to live up to what they promised, and now they are trying to hide from their responsibility."
In 2005 the G8 promised to increase overall annual aid levels by $50 billion by 2010, and said that half of this increase - $25 billion - would go to Africa. Oxfam has shown that on current trends, the G8 are likely to miss the target by $30 billion, with the main culprits being Italy, where aid is falling, France, where aid is stagnant, and Germany, whose aid increases are far from enough to meet the promises made in Gleneagles.
Specific financial commitments on HIV/AIDS and education are also being resisted in favor of noncommittal platitudes. Proposals for annual monitoring of aid increases linked to the regular meeting of G8 finance ministers have been quietly ditched. Reports suggest that the G8 chair, Germany, is not pushing this issue as much as it could, in contrast to the strong leadership being shown on the climate issue.
Lawson: "Climate change is a massive challenge, to which all rich-country governments must respond with more money for adaptation and measures to reduce emissions and limit warming to as far below 2 degrees as possible. However, the drive to get agreement on climate must not detract from vital debates on aid. G8 summits must not be simply about making promises, but also about keeping them."
Oxfam said the failure of some G8 countries to increase aid stands in contrast to the welcome announcement yesterday from the US of an extra $30 billion over 5 years to fight HIV-AIDS.
Lawson: "There is still time for the G8 to get this right. Out of this meeting we need to see clear annual timetables for the promised aid increases, which will be publicly monitored by finance ministers. The money is desperately needed to help save lives and boost development in Africa and around the world. The G8's credibility rests on their ability to follow through."
]]>UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will meet heads of state and other officials from more than 150 countries in New York on Sept 24 to build momentum for talks toward a new international climate agreement beginning in Bali this December.
Oxfam is concerned that climate change is increasing poverty and vulnerability among poor people who are least responsible for the problem and least able to bear its effects. The changes needed to tackle the causes and effects of climate change must be both adequate and fair to the world’s poorest people, Oxfam says.
Rich countries must make sharp and binding carbon reductions in a post-2012 deal, Oxfam says. There is widespread scientific consensus that the ramifications of global warming reaching above 2°C will be catastrophic, particularly for poorer countries.
“The significance of this meeting is that all countries are at the table, including developing countries that are in the front-line of climate change,” said Greg Puley, head of Oxfam’s New York office. “Rich countries must lead the way for a global binding deal at the UN on emissions reductions. They can build trust by providing the kind of support that the world’s poorest people need to prepare for the damaging impacts of climate change at least $50 billion or more a year,” he said.
“Rich countries have come up extremely short in providing finance for adaptation, despite being most responsible for the problem. Current pledges are less than 1% of what’s needed. At this meeting, they could start to set that right and make adaptation a central part of a future deal,” said Puley.
]]>Altogether 20 million people in India, Bangladesh, and Nepal have been affected by flooding in the current monsoon, forcing many from their homes.
"Across the region people are struggling to cope with what is for many the worst flooding in living memory,” said Ashvin Dayal, head of Oxfam in South Asia. “Millions of the very poorest have lost their homes, their possessions, and their livelihoods. Thanks to good preparation we have responded quickly and saved lives, but people desperately need our help to get back on their feet again.”
Last week, Oxfam and its partners in Bihar, northern India, managed to rescue stranded villagers using 20 small boats they had ready as part of their disaster contingency plan for the flood-prone area. The groups have also tapped their emergency stocks to provide essential household items and temporary shelter for displaced people.
Oxfam has been working on village-level flood preparedness with local authorities in all the three countries. In Nepal, for instance, preparedness has meant that people’s raised homesteads have not been flooded and their raised drinking water sources, such as tube-wells, are still safe. This is true for many prepared villagers in Bangladesh and India too.
"These floods show how important it is for governments and the international community to be prepared for when disasters strike,” said Dayal. “Today we are providing emergency aid for those who have lost everything. In the long term we must work with local authorities to help vulnerable people in the flood-prone areas of India, Bangladesh, and Nepal to cope with increasingly erratic and unpredictable weather."
Oxfam is currently responding to this and more than 30 other emergencies around the world. To make it possible for Oxfam to respond to emergencies and work to overcome poverty and suffering, you can make a donation to our Global Emergencies Fund.
]]>The legislation, which will now go to the full Senate for consideration, marks a first for the US in the endeavor to drive national action on climate change. It would use revenues from the auction of greenhouse gas emission permits to provide assistance to vulnerable developing countries to adapt to climate change impacts. This would generate at least $1 billion a year for adaptation funding at the outset of the program, increasing over time.
Oxfam estimates that unavoidable climate impacts in all developing countries require at least $50 billion per year, of which rich countries, including the US, Japan, Canada and the EU, should be responsible for more than 80 percent. The Senate vote comes at a pivotal moment in international climate talks in Bali this week, where developing countries are calling for greater adaptation assistance.,/p>
“Assisting poor communities around the world who are already facing climate impacts is an essential element of any future global climate agreement,” said Oxfam America’s David Waskow. “Taking this action in US legislation will send a clear message to poor countries at the international negotiations that the US Congress is not just standing idly by. In addition to financing adaptation, the US and other rich countries also need to cut their own emissions first and fastest as well as provide money and technology to help poor countries achieve a low-carbon future.”
Funds generated by the Lieberman-Warner Act would be overseen by the US Agency for International Development and used for such purposes as supporting the development of climate change adaptation plans in least-developed countries, and promoting the adoption of low-carbon and energy efficient technologies in least developed countries.
“The proposed legislation is a change of tune that clearly recognises international obligations to address the effects as well of the causes of its on-going greenhouse gas contributions,” said Waskow. “Now it’s up to the full Senate and the House of Representatives to build on this legislation to ensure robust adaptation assistance to respond to the damage that is caused by climate change in the context of global poverty”.
It is also critical that Congress explores how such efforts can work in tandem with other international action to provide for effective and fair delivery of assistance at the community level in developing countries, according to Oxfam. The US has yet to contribute to any of the existing multilateral funds to support adaptation in poor countries.
Ambitious cuts in harmful greenhouse gases are critically important to developing nations, as they will bear the brunt of climate change through increased floods, droughts, and ruined livelihoods. While the Lieberman-Warner legislation approved by the Senate Committee today is an historic step forward, more needs to be done, according to Oxfam.
“The ball is now rolling to reduce our harmful carbon emissions, but scientists tell us we need to cut emissions by 80 percent by 2050 in order to avoid dangerous impacts on the poor,” continued Waskow. ”As the world’s largest historic emitter, the United States has a responsibility to dramatically reduce its contribution to the problem and also to start helping poor countries address the increasingly severe impacts of climate change.”
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