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Some 375 million people a year will probably be affected by climate change-related disasters by 2015 - up from 250 million a year as at present - says a new report by the UK charity Oxfam, which points out that this could overwhelm the world’s current humanitarian aid capacity.
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“Some may say this is alarmist, but we need to get the message out,” Sarah Ireland, regional director for Oxfam GB, East Asia, told IRIN in Bangkok, describing the scale of the humanitarian challenge as “unprecedented”.
“This really does threaten our ability to deal with and respond to these disasters,” she said.
The report launched on 21 April and entitled The Right to Survive: the humanitarian challenge for the 21st century provides compelling evidence of the need to rethink the way the world responds to, prepares for and prevents disasters.
Based on data from 6,500 climate-related disasters since 1980, Oxfam predicts that the current number of people affected annually would rise by 133 million or 54 percent - not counting those affected by wars, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.
The world will need to increase its humanitarian aid spending from 2006 levels of US$14.2 billion to at least $25 billion a year, Oxfam said.
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