As EU and world leaders gather in New York to galvanise action on climate change, Reporter travels to the Philippines, a country hit by the worsening effects of changing weather.

Climate change: Battered by a typhoon

https://api.multimedia.europarl.europa.eu/documents/20125/11854906/m003-0293-en.srt

It used to be that the ill effects  of climate change happened elsewhere.

But increasingly savage storms,  heat waves

and capricious weather patterns  are to be seen everywhere now.

As world leaders gather in New York for  a UN summit this month to galvanise action

before next year's  climate change summit in Paris,

Reporter asks  what is to be done and who by.

It's 10 months after super typhoon Haiyan

barrelled across central Philippines  last year,

killing at least 6,000 people  in the storm and wave surge.

right in the zone designated 'no settlement'.  They have no choice.

It seems like this is the end of the world,

that people will be washed out  to have a new generation.

Nearly all my family  has been missing until now.

Their bodies have not yet been recovered.

The accompanying  15 to 25-foot wave surge

was new in a country  long used to typhoons.

Had people heeded the warnings  they might have fled to high ground,

but they didn't,  and Haiyan, christened Yolanda here,

Yolanda went through like a cannonball.  It just rolled everything out of its way.

The storms are getting stronger.  They're more unpredictable.

The devastation is on a much larger scale,  on a much larger area.

So what to do  beyond the emergency response?

First, rebuild lives and livelihoods,  help people adapt.

This is a fishing community  and these glass-fibre boats are sturdier

and travel further than  the smashed wooden boats they replace.

like this Red Cross secure housing project  for 20,000 people.

Aside from what we're doing now,  what you've seen here in housing,

we're going to teach these communities  how to be more resilient,

so they can provide for themselves  for at least one or two weeks,

so that when aid comes in, it's the right  kind of aid to the right number of people.

Third, and here's the rub for the EU  and world leaders at the New York summit,

If I had 10 minutes with these world leaders  whose industry is affecting weather,

it is happening  whether you acknowledge it or not.

Secondly, a large part of the world's  population lives in countries like mine.

Countries where more and more people  hit by the effects of climate change

flee to the cities for work and security.

Metro Manila is a megacity  of 25-30 million people,

almost a third of the Philippines population.

After Yolanda  it swelled by tens of thousands.

Climate change affecting  a nation's economic and social fabric.

We've been telling a lot of countries already,

especially developed countries  which have not felt these kinds of typhoons,

that we really have to work together  and address this,

both by a reduction of carbon emissions  so that we lessen global warming,

Coincidentally two months  before the typhoon hit,

WWF predicted such an event in 2030,  16 years away.

So as news of a surge  in CO2 emissions surfaces

from the World  Meteorological Organization,

what's her message  to the developed nations?

Keep your promises.  Promises of reduction have been made

and yet we've not seen enough of that.  Promises in terms of financing.

From the EU side, the message is indeed,  'We're all in this together',

because CO2 reduction  is a collective responsibility.

Low-emitting countries now  won't remain like that forever.

The EU sees itself as a leader by example,

but many say  it's not nearly brave or radical enough.

The EU is always pretending  to lead the world,

which it might have done a few years ago,  but at this stage we're not.

It's always the financing. We have been  promising 100 billion dollars by 2020

and there's still not much  really being pledged.

That is the test for developing countries:  'How serious are the rich countries?'

Up till now they're right in saying  they don't seem to be very serious.

The next months are crucial.  After New York,

the EU will define  its 2030 targets in October.

Then late next year  it's the UN's Paris summit

where hopes will be high  for an ambitious global climate deal.