CLIMATE change poses a potential threat to the whole living world. Many species of animals have already been endangered by its ugly claws. The developing countries in particular are the worst sufferers of the effect of climate change.

The sun somehow feels closer here, more intense, more personal. As Philip Lolua waits under a tree for a scoop of food, heat waves dance up from the desert floor, blurring the dead animal carcasses sprawled in front of him.

Farmers worldwide managed 32.2 million hectares of agricultural land organically in 2007, nearly 5 percent more than in the previous year and a 118-percent increase since 2000. Organic farming is now reported in 141 countries; about two thirds of this land area is in industrial countries, and nearly half of the producers are in Africa.

Somalia and Sri Lanka are among the countries at greatest risk from climate change, while the US and Japan are within the top 15 nations least at risk.

Africa and much of South Asia face extreme risk from climate change but top carbon polluters will be relatively shielded from its ravages, according to a ranking of 166 countries obtained by AFP on Wednesday.

While world environmental risk analysts have expressed fears over extreme climate changes in South Asian nations including Sri Lanka, U.N. climate panel chairman said the world could still cap global warming at far lower levels than widely expected if nations

Over the last 50 years, nine out of ten natural disasters around the world have been the result of extreme weather and climate events. Storms, floods, droughts, heatwaves, dust storms, wildfires and many other natural hazards threaten the lives and livelihoods of millions of people worldwide.

Pakistan is

The United Nations issued its

Melting Himalayan glaciers and other climate change impacts pose a direct threat to the water and food security of more than 1.6 billion people in South Asia, according to preliminary findings of a new study financed by the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

Climate change threatens to bring food and water shortages to 1.6 billion people in South Asia, with the region's poorest likely to be worst hit, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) said here Wednesday. New research commissioned by the ADB shows that if current climate trends persist until 2050, maize yields in South Asia will fall by 17 percent, wheat by 12 percent and rice by 10 percent.