Typhoon Hagupit: Climate warriors up in arms over Philippines tropical storm

Climate warriors are up in arms in the wake of Typhoon Hagupit battering the disaster-weary Philippines.

The tropical storm is decimating the Philippines when countries have gathered in the Peruvian capital of Lima to discuss global climate change.

"People are still struggling to rebuild their lives and grieving for loved ones lost. We hope this typhoon will spare them of similar pain. At first opportunity, I will travel to these communities and stand in solidarity with them," said Greenpeace International Executive Director Kumi Naidoo, who is currently in the Philippines.

"It is a tragedy that the price of climate change is being paid by those who carry no blame for its causes. Our climate is changing at an alarming rate and now more than ever, urgent climate action has become an issue of survival."

Typhoon Hagupit, locally referred as Ruby, has made two landfalls in the country toppling trees and lifting rooftops.

With nearly one million people fled to safety regions, the UN said it is one of biggest peacetime evacuations.

This is the third such typhoon striking the Philippines while a major global climate conference is underway. The earlier ones being Typhoon Haiyan while the Warsaw talks was taking place and Typhoon Pablo pounding when conference was on in Doha in 2012.

The experts are convening in Lima so as to decide on a key global climate deal which would be finalised in Paris in the next 12 months.

"To us in the Philippines, we are not any more debating on whether or not the impacts of climate change are here, we have experienced it. Year after year we are bombarded… from one typhoon to another," Voltaire Alferez of the Aksyon Klima Pilipinas NGO grouping told the AFP.