Working together to end poverty and injustice

Climate change costs lives

Climate change is already having a devastating impact on people’s lives, and poor communities in developing countries are being hit first and worst. Extreme weather events and fluctuating seasons are destroying homes, crops and water sources – pushing people backwards as they strive for progress.

Our Pacific neighbours living in some of the world’s lowest-lying countries are particularly vulnerable. Rising sea levels, king tides and storm surges are threatening to make their homelands uninhabitable. A fair deal on climate change cannot come fast enough for the world's poorest people.

Your commitment to a fairer world

Thank you to everyone who campaigned on climate change with Oxfam New Zealand in 2009. Because you and so many others spoke out, global leaders didn't dare pretend the climate change negotiations in Copenhagen were a success. Check out the inspirational video of your commitment to a fairer world:

The world still needs you!

We are not done yet and the world still needs your help! The world still needs a fair, ambitious and legally-binding deal that stops climate change in its tracks and adequately deals with the unavoidable effects, which are hitting poor countries first and worst.

• Sign up to campaign updates

Speaking out at Pasifika 2010

Pelenise Alofa Pilitati from Kiribati lives on the frontline of climate change. Her yard fills up with salt water everyday with the high tide. Nothing grows there. She spoke from the Tuvalu and the Kiribati stages at Pasifika to encourage people to stand up and fight to save their home islands.

• Oxfam's photos on Flickr: Pasifika Festival 2010

Why is Oxfam calling for urgent action on climate change?

Because it’s about people.

Climate change is one of the greatest injustices of our time – the first hit and worst affected are the people who have done the least to cause the problem, and are least equipped to deal with it.

• Read personal accounts of how climate change is hitting people in developing countries first and worst.

What is Oxfam doing?

Oxfam is working to help poor communities adapt to climate change through new technologies, diversifying livelihoods and disaster risk reduction.

We are also advocating for international action to stop the worst climate change impacts from happening and to help vulnerable communities protect themselves from the unavoidable effects. This includes:

• Taking a leadership role at the UN meetings on climate change by calling for emission reduction targets of 40 per cent by 2020
• Proposing an innovative way to generate the funding that poor people need to lower their own emissions and cope with climate change through an international Financial Transaction Tax, also referred to as a Robin Hood Tax
• Committing to an Environmental Sustainability Programme to reduce our own emissions and impact on the environment.

Find out more about climate change

• Learn how climate change affects the entire global economy.
• Read more killer facts on the impact of climate change.