Heads of state and government expected to attend major climate summit hosted by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in New York tomorrow
Weather-related disasters have cost the world €380 million in the past five years, campaigners said.
More than 650 million people have been affected and more than 112,000 lives lost in disasters such as floods and storms since the world gathered in Copenhagen in 2009 in a failed bid to secure a new global treaty on climate change, Oxfam said.
Each year since 2009 has been among the most expensive 10 years on record for weather-related disasters, and the costs over the five years are three times more than for the whole of the 1970s, the aid agency said.
Extreme weather events are expected to become more frequent and severe with rising global temperatures.
Oxfam said poor people were being hit first and hardest by climate change, damaging livelihoods and crops, pushing up food prices and leaving millions hungry, but that international commitments to reverse rising emissions had stalled.
The warning was issued ahead of the UN climate summit in New York tomorrow, which is intended to drive action ahead of talks in Paris next year aimed at achieving a global climate treaty.
Oxfam said world leaders are expected to bring little to the summit, and while there would be promising announcements from business, the private sector lacked the ambition and scope to turn the tables on climate change and was no substitute for government action.
At the UN talks in Copenhagen, leaders agreed to cut emissions but their pledges were not enough to keep temperatures from rising more than 2˚C and avoiding the worst impacts of climate change, and they had not increased ambition since, Oxfam said.
The charity also warned that leaders had agreed to provide billions of euors so that developing countries had €75 billion a year by 2020 to help them develop cleanly and cope with the impacts of climate change, but only a fraction of the promised finance was flowing.
Oxfam is calling on David Cameron, expected to attend the UN climate summit, to lead the way in boosting climate finance by pledging the UK’s fair share of money and in pushing for a more ambitious EU climate and energy package to help cut global emissions.
Mark Goldring, chief executive of Oxfam, said: “The cost of climate-related disasters is spiralling out of control.
“The Ban Ki-moon summit is a chance to breathe new life into the floundering global fight against climate change and one we must take. Climate change is already claiming lives and making people hungry and costs are spiralling as world leaders sit on their hands.
“Some companies have taken welcome steps to tackle climate change but only ambitious global political leadership will provide the giant strides forward we need.”