Expressing grave concerns over the rampant environmental degradation in the country, environmental experts have said that Pakistan, especially Sindh, is facing an environmental disaster.

Tree-munching beetles, malaria-carrying mosquitoes and deer ticks that spread Lyme disease are three living signs that climate change is likely to exact a heavy toll on human health.

These pests and others are expanding their ranges in a warming world, which means people who never had to worry about them will have to start. And they are hardly the only health threats from global warming.

Sea levels have risen so much that during the annual king tide season residents of Carteret Islands stash their possessions in fishing nets strung between the palm trees.

For the first time in history, you could actually lose countries off the face of the globe

Climate change is a development issue that has some security aspects

With their boundless vistas of turquoise water framed by swaying coconut palms, the Carteret Islands northeast of the Papua New Guinea mainland might seem the idyllic spot to be a castaway.

Stuart Beck, the permanent representative for Palau at the United Nations, in 2005.

Tree-munching beetles, malaria-carrying mosquitoes and deer ticks that spread Lyme disease are three living signs that climate change is likely to exact a heavy toll on human health.

These pests and others are expanding their ranges in a warming world, which means people who never had to worry about them will have to start. And they are hardly the only health threats from global warming.

The number of people displaced by conflict and natural disaster in Central and East Africa is now more than 11 million, the United Nations said on Monday.

Hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis have fled from fighting in the Swat mountain valley only to be subjected to a cruel onslaught from nature on the plain below.

More than 800,000 people have left their homes in the scenic valley of orchards, forests and bubbling streams since government forces began battling Taliban militants there late last month.

Low-lying Bangladesh risks devastating impacts from rising world sea levels caused by climate change with risks that millions will be forced from their homes this century, Foreign Minister Dipu Moni said.

She told Reuters that rich nations would have to help the densely populated country of 150 million people, possibly by opening their borders to environmental refugees.