As UN climate talks began in Warsaw, Philippines chief delegate Naderev Sano addressed the conference on Typhoon Haiyan. “I speak for the countless people who will no longer be able to speak for themselves after perishing from the storm”, he said. “We can take drastic action now to ensure that we prevent a future where super typhoons become a way of life.”

Sano, on hunger strike in solidarity with those impacted by the typhoon, broke down during his address. He explained that some of his relatives were still missing in devastated Tacloban.

The typhoon is a grim reminder of the consequences of climate change. As representatives of the developing world argued during the Warsaw talks, global warming will result in more and more extreme weather events like Haiyan.

Throughout the talks, world leaders once again showed their indifference to environmental destruction and its human costs.

Japan – the world’s fifth largest greenhouse gas emitter – dispensed with plans to cut greenhouse emissions by 25 percent relative to 2005 figures, in favour of a meagre 3.8 percent reduction. Climate Action Tracker, a group of climate scientists and analysts, accused the Canadian government of “playing with numbers” on emissions reduction claims. And the Australian government didn’t even bother to send a minister to Warsaw – sparing the conference delegates any more of environment minister Greg Hunt’s Wikipedia-based “insights” into climate change and catastrophic weather events.

Drawing on data from climate researchers in 10 countries, the Global Carbon Project found that emissions rose by 2.2 percent in 2012 and will rise by another 2.1 percent this year. Projections indicate a record 36 billion tonnes of CO2 will be released into the atmosphere in 2013 – an increase of more than 60 percent since 1990. For its part, Australia released 371 million tonnes of CO2 in 2012.

While Tony Abbott claims that he will follow through with Australia’s utterly inadequate commitment to reduce emissions by 5 percent by 2020, Climate Action Tracker predicts that under Liberal Party environment policy, Australia’s emissions will instead rise by 12 percent in this period.

The Abbott government has pursued an aggressive policy of environmental backwardness. It has abolished the Climate Commission and begun the process of shutting down the Climate Change Authority. Abbott also dispensed with the minister for science. And while Australia’s carbon emissions rose under the carbon tax, and big polluters benefited from its windfall profits, the abolition of the tax is largely seen as an attack on any notion of environmentally progressive policy.

Among the Philippine survivors of Haiyan, more than 12,000 people have arrived in Manila – climate refugees from the death and chaos of the typhoon. Staying with relatives or in temporary shelters, they are now forced to choose between returning to hometowns reduced to rubble and staying in the capital with few prospects.

As a world leader in brutal refugee policies, the Australian government shows how an inhumane system treats desperate people. We need systemic change to prevent millions of climate refugees from suffering these degradations in the future.