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CLIMATE change has been blamed for floods that have killed thousands and left millions homeless from Pakistan to North Korea, fires and a heatwave in Russia that have left 5000 dead and disrupted global food markets, and a severe tropical storm threatening Bermuda.
In Greenland, a giant ice island four times the size of Manhattan - about 225 square kilometers - has broken off the Petermann Glacier. It is the largest chunk of ice to calve in the Arctic since 1962.
Governments fear the devastation in Asia may stretch aid efforts as crops are destroyed amid soaring wheat prices, caused in part by Russia's decision to ban grain exports until December 31.
"Mother Nature is playing a very evil hand," Peter McGuire, managing director at CWA Global Markets, said in Sydney yesterday. "It's always the poor that suffer."
The weather drew comment from officials and activists at international climate change talks in Bonn.
One US delegate said Russia's heatwave and the recent floods that have devastated Pakistan are ''consistent with the kind of changes we would expect to see from climate change and they will only get worse unless we act quickly".
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