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Who is affected more when it's cold? Poor people. Who is affected more when it's hot? Poor people. Who is affected more when it's wet? Poor people. Who is most affected when the economy is bad? Poor people. Poor people are the most fragile.

People are seeing the impact of climate change around them in extraordinary patterns of floods and droughts, wildfires, heatwaves and powerful storms.

The increasing frequency of extreme weather events, droughts and floods is in line with what climate scientists have been predicting for decades - and evidence is mounting that what's happening is more severe than predicted, and will get far worse still if we fail to act.

Extreme weather threatens our energy and electric grid, federal buildings, transportation infrastructure, access to natural resources, public health, our relationships across the globe, and many other aspects of life.

The signs of climate change are visible across the nation, from the drought-stricken fields of Central California to the flooded streets of Michigan. Extreme weather is turning people's lives upside down and costing communities millions of dollars in damaged infrastructure and added health care costs.

Fragile economies and weak infrastructures tend to worsen the results of climate disruptions, a problem exemplified by Bangladesh's vulnerability to monsoons, accelerating desertification in northern China, and, most visibly, Hurricane Katrina's devastation in New Orleans.

Failure to curb temperature increases will impact all countries, Ireland included, but with the most immediate and drastic effects being felt, in many instances, by the most vulnerable countries and communities.

It's the poorer people in tropical zones who will get really hit by climate change - as well as some ecosystems, which nobody wants to see disappear.

Here in New York, we are already seeing how climate change contributes to increasingly violent and extreme weather that has cost us dearly, in both damage and in lives.

The whole climate is changing: the winds, the ocean currents, the storm patterns, snow packs, snowmelt, flooding, droughts. Temperature is just a bit of it.