TEMPO.CO, Warsaw - Naderev Sano, representative for the Philippines at the UN Climate Change talks, broke down in tears as he addressed delegates present in Warsaw. Sano, whose family is from Tacloban – one of the worst hit areas by the Typhoon Haiyan – announced that he was going on a hunger strike until "a meaningful outcome is in sight." Representatives from 190 nations have gathered in Poland to try and promulgate a new pact to fight global warming.
"What my country is going through as a result of this extreme climate event is madness," said Sano. "We can fix this. We can stop this madness. Right now, right here."
He then said that the intensity of the storm was the result of climate change.
"Science tells us that simply, climate change will mean more intense tropical storms," he posted in The Guardian on Tuesday, November 12.
"As the Earth warms up, that would include the oceans. The energy stored in the waters off the Philippines will increase the intensity of typhoons and the trend we see now is that more destructive storms..."
His comments were supported by Christiana Figueres, Executive Director of the UN framework convention on climate change (UNFCCC). She said that Typhoon Haiyan served as a backdrop of "sobering reality" to the fortnight-long negotiations in the Polish capital.
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