At least 4.5 million children worldwide are in danger of dying from the impacts of climate change unless world leaders agree to increase funds that will mitigate the effects of climate change, non-government aid agency Oxfam International said.

Oxfam issued the statement during the launch of its report titled “Beyond Aid” released Wednesday, in time for the United Nations Climate Summit in New York on Sept. 22.

The meeting will be followed by the G20 Summit on Sept. 24, where climate finance will be high on the agenda.

Oxfam cited that only Denmark, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom expressed support for additional funds to fight climate change.

“Without at least $50 billion a year in addition to the 0.7 percent of national income of rich countries have already pledged as aid, recent progress toward the Millennium Development Goals could stall and then go into reverse,” the group said.

“For people living on the margins, even a small increase in climate risk can have catastrophic consequences that can span generations. The cumulative impacts could send people into a downward spiral of increasing poverty and vulnerability with profound implications for the achievability of the Millennium Development Goals,” the report pointed out.

Oxfam is also concerned that December’s climate negotiations in Copenhagen, Denmark could fail, unless action is taken now by heads of State. The climate talks will be led by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which aims to achieve a new climate change treaty among its member-states, including the Philippines.

The report also warned that at least 75 million fewer children are likely to attend school and 8.6 million fewer people could have access to HIV/AIDS treatment if aid is “diverted” to help poor countries tackle climate change.

It cited that climate change is already increasing the exposure of poor people to livelihood shocks arising from droughts, floods, sickness, storms and slow-onset changes such as shifting seasons, desertification and sea-level rise.

“Funds must be increased – not diverted – to help poor countries adapt to climate change and this cannot be seen as a two for one deal by politicians. Rich countries must not steal money from poor hospitals and schools in order to pay their climate debt to the developing world,” Oxfam International chief executive officer Jeremy Hobbs said.

Oxfam Philippines spokesperson Kalayaan Pulido-Constantino said “failing to provide funds to help developing countries carry the additional burden of climate change adaptation will put at risk and even reverse whatever gains have been achieved by past and ongoing official development initiatives.”

“Additional funds for climate change adaptation will go a long way in protecting the agriculture, fisheries and forestry sectors, where such natural resources are located,” Constantino said.

“We also hope that the availability of such funds will jump-start efforts to rescue these sectors from the conditions of neglect and underdevelopment under which they, and the vast majority of the poor in climate change-vulnerable countries such as the Philippines, have been wallowing for decades now,” Constantino added.

She said the additional funds’ benefit for countries such as the Philippines is that “they will not only be able to cope with climate change, they can even profit from it.”

“In the absence of additional adaptation funding, Oxfam is seeing people in poor countries going without food, pulling their children out of school or selling off cattle and other assets critical to their livelihoods, so that they can pay for debt caused by continuing failed crops and other climate shocks,” Constantino said.