El Salvador struggles to cope with severe weather during the annual hurricane season.”

Credits: Caritas

In 2007, heat waves across Europe resulted in an increase in deaths amongt the older and poorer members of the population. 

In the last decade the numbers of flash floods on the African continent were four times greater and more destructive than any previously recorded decade.

The ongoing conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan, driven by food shortages caused by increased drought, can be attributed to changes in climate.

Two years ago only half the international disasters were connected to climate change. In 2007, all but one of the emergency appeals run by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs was climate-related.


Caritas on climate change

“The impacts of climate change are being felt in developing countries, and even more so in the most vulnerable areas. Before we were winning, now we are losing - because the rains have changed,” said Stephen Waweru, acting director of Caritas Nyeri, Kenya, in an interview with Trocaire.

In January 2008, Caritas Internationalis (CI) established a new “Climate Change” desk within the CI delegation in Geneva, to actively participate in ongoing discussions – within the United Nations and other international organisations – about the risks posed by climate changes, especially in regard to the poorest and most vulnerable.