climat

The cost of weather-related disasters in the five years since global leaders last met to discuss climate change is almost half a trillion dollars ($490 billion) – three times more than for the whole of the 1970s.

Oxfam analyzes the commitments being brought by government and corporate sector leaders to the Climate Summit and reveals that they fall short of what is urgently needed.

Today Oxfam praised the CEO’s of eight of the ten biggest food and beverage companies in the world for joining together with the heads of some 400 major companies to call on world leaders, “to act with determination, leadership and ambition to secure an ambitious and legally binding global climate deal.”

For the food and beverage industry, climate change is a major threat. For millions of people, it means more extreme weather and greater hunger.

The IPCC Working Group II report released today <

Hunger is not and need never be inevitable. However climate change threatens to put back the fight to eradicate it by decades – and our global food system is woefully unprepared to cope with the challenge.

Local food reserves can contribute to food security strategies and have the potential to empower communities.

For the past year we have all operated under the hangover of Copenhagen: the disappointment, suspicion, scepticism and disorientation. And while there was so much more that could have been accomplished at Cancun, the other side of these talks is a better place to be.

National self-interest and brinkmanship must not be allowed to sabotage the Cancun climate talks and risk reversing the progress made over the past two weeks, warned Oxfam on the penultimate day of the increasingly volatile Summit.

Halfway through the Cancun climate talks, negotiators have an opportunity to make real progress on a fair global climate fund and climate finance, said Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland and Honorary President of Oxfam.