Here's a funny thing. It was possible to stay perfectly busy at the climate talks without going anywhere near the actual talks. This was not about sitting around gossiping over a cup of coffee, although there seemed to be plenty of that going on. Nor was it about dressing up as a polar bear or a lump of coal and waving placards outside.

Desperate for food, Lalbagh and other men from this village deep in Sanghar district, one of the worse hit by the floods, sometimes venture out early in the morning on foot to the mainland about two miles away. They wade through the water in groups of four or five to scare away the crocodiles.

"Children's throats get sore after drinking contaminated water from the nearby canal. We have nothing left in this world; there's no hope for us," she added, staring at the surrounding flooded fields, pointing at the distance to the rooftops of the wooden shacks popping out of the water, the place they used to live.