Up in smoke? Latin America and the Caribbean: the threat from climate change to the environment and human development

Hurricane Katrina dominated news headlines around the world in 2005, but, as the report documents, other hurricanes and extreme events in the region have gone largely unreported. The report confirms that largely regular and predictable temperature and rainfall patterns, are changing, becoming less predictable and often more extreme. It catalogues the impact of climate change and environmental degradation ranging from drought in the Amazon to floods in Haiti and elsewhere; vanishing glaciers in Colombia to extreme cold in the Andes; and hurricanes, not only in Central America and the Caribbean, but also in southern Brazil. Across the region the capacity of natural ecosystems to act as buffers against extreme weather events and other shocks is being undermined leaving people more vulnerable.