UN

Imagine the ultimate dilemma: if you cannot pay for health care, it costs you your life; and if you do pay, it still costs you your life because it pushes you into poverty and indebtedness. This is the decision faced by poor people when they are forced to pay for health services. This implies that the right to health is only a right if you can afford to pay for it. 

They will tell us, again and again, that it cannot be done. That the proliferation of conventional weapons cannot be controlled through a global negotiated effort. That we have to live with automatic guns and other weapons of mass misery traveling from conflict to conflict, without effective controls, with a trail of death and destruction among defenceless civilians.

So here we are at the G8 International Media Centre at l’Aquila, Italy. I cannot believe it’s already been 364 days after all the hype of the last G8 was over in Japan.

The usually sleepy climate negotiations were given a wake up alarm call today by a wailing siren outside the conference centre. It was an NGO stunt involving two trucks and two very loud air raid sirens, each enclosed in a locked cage. To turn the sirens off, the police had to cut their way through each metal cage to reach the machinery and arrest the protesters.

On their way to the plenary delegates at the UN climate talks here in Bonn, pass by a ragged bear holding up a sign: 'No coins, it's change I need.' It is a silent protest. If we would hold a minutes silence for each of the death caused by climate change, we would not be uttering a word for the next 180 days and even longer.

At Oxfam, we campaign on climate change because it hits poor people first and worst.

Yet most of us, in our day-to-day lives, still don't have a clear sense of how global warming really affects the lives, rights and livelihoods of millions of people around the world. If we are going to get people to wake up to the need for urgent action, then bridging this gap is critical.

So how do we "humanize" climate change?

Despite being responsible for a tiny fraction of historic carbon emissions, it is poor countries that are feeling the effects of climate change. Countries like Peru, where the glaciers communities depend on for agriculture, industry and electricity are disappearing at an alarming rate.

Sixty years ago today, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This Declaration has helped us combat torture, discrimination and hunger. And now, this venerable document should guide us in the fight against one of the greatest challenges ever to face humankind: climate change.

I’m huddled in a corner of the swank Sheraton Hotel in Doha, Qatar.  Around me, workers are carrying massive rows of theater chairs, and rolls of wallpaper.

Why am I here at the most famous hotel in Doha, in this tiny and extremely wealthy Gulf country? (Obviously not where I hang out on an average day)  And what on earth are they doing to this place?

It's been a whirlwind of activity in New York.  To give you an idea of the crazy week we have had out here, this is a snapshot of what I’ve seen and done…

8.30 in a taxi with bollywood movie star Rahul Bose talking about the progress on education and health in India.  Followed swiftly by briefing with Kristen Davis making the comparison of the 700 billion dollar bank bail out all over the media this week, and the mere 50 billion the G8 promised to poverty eradication and have still not delivered on.