Tiempo Climate Newswatch

"My friend went out hunting but never returned. He never returned because he fell through thin ice, ice that should never have been thin at that time of year," Jesse Mike, from Baffin Island, Canada, told the first annual meeting of the Global Humanitarian Forum. Mike, along with young people from other vulnerable regions, was a climate witness, documenting the threat posed by rising sea levels and the erosion of traditional ways of life.

"What is absolutely crucial is that we and people around the world measure and weigh the impact of climate change not just in scientific terms but by its social, economic and humanitarian implications," said Kofi Annan, the Forum's president, addressing the meeting. He called for "climate justice". "It is the industrialized and wealthier nations who must take responsibility for rising greenhouse emissions," he said, "and they have an obligation to help and enable developing countries to 'grow green'." Tackling adaptation "means empowering communities everywhere so that they have the knowledge and the tools available to prepare for the worst effects of climate change, not after its effects have already taken grip, but well before," he continued. The two-day meeting brought together senior government officials, leaders of international agencies and major corporations and global financiers.

The latest Major Economies Meeting on Energy Security and Climate Change held June 21st-22nd in Seoul, South Korea, was charged with drafting a declaration to be issued at the sidelines of the forthcoming Group of Eight (G8) summit. While participants agreed that major emission cuts are needed, it appears that no agreement was reached on the proposed long-term target of a 50 per cent cut by the year 2050. The G8 summit is being held in Toyako, Japan, July 7-9th.

Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the Framework Convention on Climate Change, has called on the leaders of the major industrialized nations to reach agreement on mid-term greenhouse gas targets at the G8 summit. Yasuo Fukuda, prime minister of host nation Japan, had said previously that the G8 summit would not set medium-term targets, but would consider a longer-term goal. While it was "important to define the final destination of the journey," responded de Boer, he is "also very interested in what the first stop on that journey is going to be." The European Union has called for a specific mid-term goal to be set for the year 2020.

Global warming will cause "unprecedented" losses in agricultural production, "causing huge setbacks in the struggle against poverty and creating millions of impoverished environmental refugees," warns the latest report from the Africa Progress Panel. "This will only exacerbate the ongoing trend of rising food prices," the Panel concludes.

The Panel predicts a "sharp increase" in deaths amongst young children as a result of the current rise in world food prices. "Rising food prices are affecting tens of millions of Africans, especially those living in urban areas, and are threatening to wipe out [development] gains made over the last several decades," the report says. The food crisis "requires an immediate and thoughtful response on the best strategy... in order to enable rural populations to take advantage of the new level of agricultural prices and increase food production." The Africa Progress Panel, an independent group aiming to focus world leaders' attention on making the most of the growing number of opportunities for progress in Africa, was formed prior to the 2007 Group of Eight summit.