Tiempo Climate Newswatch

As Hurricane Rita weakened before making landfall on the Gulf Coast of the United States, heavy rain and high seas breached the newly-repaired levees of New Orleans, flooding parts of the city once more. Only 500 people remained in the city as Rita approached.

Mass evacuation along threatened sections of the Gulf Coast occurred well in advance of Rita's landfall, causing lengthy traffic jams. "I don't think they would have made this big deal about it before but Katrina has made everybody want to get out," resident Karen Mclinjoy told Reuters. In the event, Rita's impact failed to match the fears of another Katrina-scale catastrophe. Widespread structural damage, flooding and power failures occurred, but no fatalities were reported in the immediate aftermath. Hurricane Katrina is now believed to have caused over 1,000 deaths.

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• Latest, CBS
• Latest, CNN
• Latest, ABC

• In depth, BBC
• Hurricane Rita
• On the Web

Up to 10,000 people a year in the Asia-Pacific region could be dying as a result of impacts related to global warming, according to a World Health Organization (WHO) expert, and the number could increase over the next 50 to 100 years. Hisashi Ogawa, regional environmental adviser to the WHO, warned that "we need to adapt ourselves or our way of living... to the changing climate."

"The number of deaths due to various natural disasters - droughts, floods, storms - has increased [by] about 30 to 40 per cent" between the early 1980s and late 1990s, said Ogawa. Though it was not possible to identify the precise cause of this trend, the region's increasingly aged population was more vulnerable to stress. Rising temperature could also be affecting water quality and the spread of disease. Ogawa was speaking during a WHO regional meeting in Noumea, New Caledonia.

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Background

• Hindustan Times
• Press release, WHO

• IPCC

Kofi Annan, United Nations Secretary-General, described the outcome of the 2005 World Summit as a "remarkable expression of world unity on a wide range of issues." He made particular note of the agreement on the precise steps to be taken in reaching the Millennium Development Goals. The lack of agreement on nuclear proliferation, "the most alarming threat we face in the immediate future," was the biggest gap in the outcome document.

The outcome document received mixed reviews. Catherine Pearce of Friends of the Earth International criticized the Summit outcome for not acknowledging fully the potential for renewable energy to reduce poverty and improve sustainable development in developing countries. "World leaders have clearly failed to face up to the urgent need to take action on climate change. This Summit was a golden opportunity for the United Nations to commit resources to and support some of the world's poorest countries that will face the harshest impacts of the world's changing climate," she said. Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, of the United Nations Population Fund, praised parts of the agreement. "Five years after the Millennium Declaration, the world has reaffirmed the need to keep gender equality, HIV/AIDS and reproductive health at the top of its agenda," she said. "This outcome is a success for millions of women, men and young people all over the world, whose appeals have been heard."

More information

• peopleandplanet.net
• noticias.info
• Press release, UN News Centre

• World Summit outcome document
• Comment, Kofi Annan
• World Summit background