Miroslav Lajcak Quotes

Fragile economies and weak infrastructures tend to worsen the results of climate disruptions, a problem exemplified by Bangladesh's vulnerability to monsoons, accelerating desertification in northern China, and, most visibly, Hurricane Katrina's devastation in New Orleans.

Pacific Islands are among those that contribute least to global warming, yet suffer most.

Typhoon Haiyan showed the entire world how vulnerable the Philippines as well as other developing countries are to natural disasters.

Islands are going to suffer from climate change in very, very difficult ways. And it's not just Pacific islands. It's not just Puerto Rico.

Climate change is hugely exacerbated by changing patterns of how we choose to live, often in danger zones such as extremely vulnerable coastal zones - from New Jersey to the Philippines. This enormously increases the economic and human costs of hurricanes, rising seas and changing weather patterns.

Black Saturday reminded many Australians of what they know only too well: that of all the advanced economies, Australia is perhaps the one most vulnerable to climate change.

I think the Caribbean countries face rising oceans and they face increase in the severity of hurricanes. This is something that is very, very scary to all of us. The island states in the world represent - I remember this number - one-half of 1 percent of the carbon emissions in the world. And they will - some of them will disappear.

We won't be able to stop disasters from happening. On the contrary, climate change may increase the frequency and severity of floods, droughts and storms. But we are better equipped today to prepare for them and reduce their impact.

What happened to Haiti is a threat that could happen anywhere in the Caribbean to these island nations, you know, because of global warming, because of climate change and all this.

If the sea level rises 6 inches, that's a big deal... we can't mitigate that; we can't stop it. We've just got to stop building vast houses on seashores and go back a little bit.

We must maintain strong building codes, strengthen flood insurance programs, and forcefully acknowledge the reality that rising sea temperatures caused by made-man climate change are negatively impacting our way of life. This should be a bipartisan task that finds support with bipartisan solutions.

When I left school, I never wondered whether my apartment in New York was vulnerable to storm surges, but my three daughters have to consider the realities of extreme weather and how it may destabilize communities around the globe.

I have talked to people across the country struggling in the face of an altered climate. New Jersey homeowners are trying to rebuild after Superstorm Sandy. Miami government officials are trying to plan for rising seas and flooded streets. California farmers are trying to make it through the state's worst drought on record.

People are seeing the impact of climate change around them in extraordinary patterns of floods and droughts, wildfires, heatwaves and powerful storms.

It has been popular to threaten 'small islands and low-lying coasts' with scenarios of disastrous future flooding. The Maldives has been the most utilised target. We have undertaken a careful analysis of actual sea level changes in the Maldives. No rise has been recorded either in the present or the past centuries.

Nature did not gift us with a mighty Mekong like Thailand and Vietnam, with their vast and naturally fertile plains. Nature instead put our islands ahead of our neighbours in the path of typhoons from the Pacific.

So it's mainly a question of helping the Third World overcome the effects of global warming.

Australia has suffered a decade of drought, epic floods, a Category 5 cyclone, and a plague of locusts. But just because Aussies have the biggest carbon footprint in the world, it doesn't mean they're stupid.

Rising sea levels, severe draughts, the melting of the polar caps, the more frequent and devastating natural disasters all raise demand for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief.

In Congress, I am focused on the effects of climate change, including ocean acidification and sea-level rise - both of which are threats to healthy oceans that sustain life on- and off-shore.

The area of climate change has a dramatic impact on national security.

Maryland is among the nation's most vulnerable states to the effects of sea level rise from climate change, and we are taking strong action to reduce carbon pollution.

On average, global warming is not going to harm the developing world.

The Maldives, a string of islands off the coast of India whose highest point above sea level is eight feet, may be the first nation to drown. In Alaska, entire towns have begun to shift in the loosening permafrost.

Global warming has melted the polar ice caps, raised the levels of the oceans and flooded the earth's great cities. Despite its evident prosperity, New Jersey is scarcely Utopia.