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The Right to Survive in a Changing Climate

9 pages

Driven by upward trends in the number of climate-related disasters and human vulnerability to them, by 2015 the average number of people affected each year by climate-related disasters could increase by over 50 per cent to 375 million. This figure is likely to continue to rise as climate change gathers pace - increasing the frequency and/or severity of such events - and poverty and inequality force ever more people to live in high-risk places, such as flood plains, steep hillsides and urban slums, while depriving them of the means to cope with disaster. Climate change is a human tragedy that threatens to completely overload the humanitarian system. The potential human costs are unimaginable, and will be borne overwhelmingly by those least responsible for causing the problem: the world's poor.

KeywordsClimate change adaptation