Climate change is rapidly becoming a major catalyst towards poverty and suffering. This year's three instalments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Fourth Assessment Report have confirmed that the poor people least responsible for climate change are the worst affected.

The lives and livelihoods of poor people will become irreparably damaged due to water scarcity, food insecurity, disease, and related conflict, unless the G8 countries, which are due to meet in Germany in June, set a worldwide target to keep global warming below 2ºC, and start reducing emissions. They must ensure that the UN climate change process has a clear mandate to negotiate a framework for action from December 2007 that ensures continuity and more emissions cuts beyond 2012.

The costs of climate adaptation in developing countries will amount to many billions of dollars more than is currently pledged. The G8 should support a comprehensive assessment of the costs of climate adaptation by the time they meet again in Japan in 2008, together with a detailed analysis of how new financing schemes, such as a tax on carbon or air tickets, should be implemented to raise the billions needed.