Oxfam reaction: Race to find out which is the hottest year on record

Responding to the World Meteorological Organization's announcement that there is a race going on between 2010, 2005 and 1998 to see which will be the hottest year since records began, Oxfam New Zealand Executive Director Barry Coates said:

"These findings support what millions of poor people around the world on the frontline of climate change already know: that the climate is changing.

"This is making it harder for people to survive. In the first nine months of this year 21,000 people died due to weather-related disasters - more than twice the number for the whole of 2009.

"Cancun must begin to resolve this by setting up a climate fund and idenitfying ways in which to raise the money desperately needed so that vulnerable people are closer to being able to protect themselves from the changing weather, which tragically is expected to get worse."