Stephen Smith and Julie Bishop missed a crucial opportunity to commit to further lifting Australia’s foreign aid spending to match comparable wealthy countries at today’s election debate, international aid agency Oxfam Australia said.
The floods that have engulfed Pakistan over the last week are a mega disaster and the world needs to mount a mega response to ensure the millions affected get the help they need, international aid agency Oxfam said today as it called for a “gear shift” in the response to the crisis.
As the latest round of the UN Climate Change Conference drew to a close in Bonn, international aid agency Oxfam warned that unless negotiations step up several gears, expectations would be low going into the next UN climate summit in Cancun.
Mobile water tanks, medical teams, boats and local volunteers have been put on high alert by Oxfam as the worst floods in living memory in Pakistan surge south.
With more than 3 million people now affected by flooding in Pakistan, Oxfam is supporting local groups who are working around the clock to rescue families cut off by rising flood waters
Oxfam is now delivering clean water to almost 100,000 people made homeless by catastrophic flooding in Pakistan.
Climate change is the central poverty issue of our time. Oxfam is seeing the world’s most vulnerable – who have contributed least to climate change – already suffering most from its effects, facing greater droughts, floods, hunger and disease.
The issue of asylum seekers is, without a doubt, a complicated one. International law and emotive political rhetoric make it so. There are no hard and fast answers but there are, dare I say it, ways to truly move forward on the issue.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard won’t be attending a meeting of Pacific island leaders this week (Tuesday 3 and Wednesday 4 August) – despite the fact that she is currently at the helm of the Pacific Islands Forum.
It’s true that people in poor countries on our doorstep won’t be voting for either Julia Gillard or Tony Abbott later this month.
But Australians who care about doing the right thing will be. So it’s no reason for either of the leaders to abandon all mention, during this election campaign, of meeting Australia’s international obligations on climate change, or for not putting up policies that will genuinely reduce Australia’s emissions to the degree that is required.