Despite the fact that developing countries are least responsible for climate changing carbon emissions, these already-struggling nations are ironically the most vulnerable to the catastrophic impacts of greenhouse gases and pollution emitted by the developed world.
Climate patterns are already changing dramatically in developing countries and the knock-on effects are disastrous for the millions of people who now face multiple crop failure, flooding, hurricanes, drought, displacement, disease and starvation.
In the run up to the crucial UN summit, Christian Aid is calling on industrialised countries to make a 20 per cent cut in their national carbon emissions by 2020, and at least 80 per cent by 2050.
Christian Aid is also pressuring these countries to share new technology, to help fund equivalent carbon emission reductions in the poorest nations, and to set up an international adaptation fund to help them adjust to sustainable, low-carbon development.
Some climate change case studies
Hadja Sala Diallo, Senegal
Annual income per person: US$1,792
*(compared to: United States US$ 41,890, UK US$33,328, Republic of Ireland US$38,505)
Carbon emissions per person: 0.4 tonnes
*(compared to: United States 20.6 tonnes, UK 9.8 tonnes, and Republic of Ireland 10.5 tonnes)
Hadja is married with six children. She is a member of the Fulani tribe, cattle herders from north Senegal. Since the 1970s her homeland has suffered from increasingly severe and frequent droughts as a result of climate change.
She gets all of her family’s water from a borehole 7km away, but with 30 villages sharing it, she often waits long hours for her turn due to a huge shortage of wells.
Hadja is illiterate but trained in textile dyeing which she wants to use to make money – but of course this requires water.
“Every day we need water – two barrels containing 400 litres, one-and-a-half barrels for the cattle, and half a barrel for the family,” she says.
“The priority is to drink but I can spend all day waiting for water.”
Audelia Ramos, Honduras
Annual income per person: US$3,430
Carbon emissions per person: 1.1 tonnes
Grandmother and coffee grower Audelia Ramos lives in Santa Rica, a hillside village in Honduras where destructive hurricanes and flooding are now an increasingly regular threat.
Over the past 35 years, storms with the same force as Hurricane Katrina have almost doubled in frequency, with climate change scientists blaming sea surface temperature rises resulting from climate change.
Santa Rita is situated by a river, the banks of which have been deforested over recent years, making the threat of landslides another huge concern to the local community.
“When I was growing up, the mountains were covered in trees, not naked like they are now,” Audelia explains.
Minu Basar, Bangladesh
Annual income per person: US$2,053
Carbon emissions per person: 0.3 tonnes
In Minu’s hometown of Kayabunia, Bangladesh, rising seawater levels are contributing to land erosion and salination of water supplies.
