Climate of Our Future

Climate Crisis Coalition

Annan Launches Forum on Humanitarian Impacts of Climate Change. Agence France-Presse, October 17, 2007. “Former UN chief Kofi Annan formally launched his new humanitarian forum here on Wednesday urging all nations to work together to meet the challenges of climate change. The Global Humanitarian Forum will work with governments and civil society to address the humanitarian impact of climate change on the poor and most vulnerable, Annan said. ‘We are all in the same boat and we need to come together to resolve it,’ [he said]. [Former UN coordinator for emergency affairs] Jan Egeland… said that five to seven times more people now lose their livelihoods from natural disasters linked to climate change, than they do from conflict… The forum… has been set up with Swiss government funding and aims to plug a gap in international disaster relief and prevention by bringing together governments, aid agencies, the military, the business world and academics. Annan said the Forum will now start to work out how to coordinate these different groups, culminating in its first annual high-level meeting in June 2008.”