“Poor countries have thrown down the gauntlet as the U.N. climate talks under the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) entered their final week, when government ministers take over the negotiations in Poland,” IRIN reports. “Recognition of the impact climate change is having on food security, a mechanism to address loss and damage as the climate changes and finance to help countries adapt are the major issues for poor countries,” the news agency writes. IRIN summarizes “the positions of some negotiators on the main issues at present” (Kindra, 11/19). U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told conference attendees on Tuesday “that the deadly devastation wrought by Typhoon Haiyan proves that the world must act now to counter the wrath of a warming planet,” according to the U.N. News Centre. “‘The science is clear. Human activities are the dominant cause of climate change. We cannot blame nature,’ he told the conference,” the news service writes (11/19).