Climate change and disaster reduction

The debate about the reality of climate change is over. Climate change is a fact, and it poses the greatest single global threat faced by humankind in our generation.

L. Craig Johnstone, Deputy High Commissioner, UNHCR 10/03/2009 16:15

Mitigating the effects of climate change is not the task for future generations; it is the most pressing task of our lifetime. If we underestimate the humanitarian implications of this threat, the consequences will be profound.

People all over the globe are already being affected by climate change. Rising ocean levels are leading to land loss and ruining fresh water sources and arable land on islands like Tuvalu and Kiribati in the South Pacific. Weather patters are being changed in ways that increase areas of drought and floods. Unheard of levels of drought in Australia have likely contributed to brush fires that have recently claimed the lives of several hundred Australians. Less obvious, but equally relevant, the suffering of victims of conflicts in Darfur and Somalia is made far worse by desertification, water scarcity, and famine.

If the present is disquieting, the future looks worse. In the past twenty years, the number of major storms has doubled from 200 to 400 a year. Over this same period, the number of floods has quadrupled. The trend of rising oceans levels is expected to increase, creating more displacement and, potentially leading to statelessness. Experts forecast more intense and frequent extreme weather patterns, including heat waves, storms, and desertification. Growing competition for ever-scarcer resources seems certain. Ensuing violence is almost inevitable.

By 2050, predictions indicate that anywhere between 250 million to 1 billion people will be displaced due to climate change. Even the conservative estimate represents an average of 6 million people displaced per year. Who is prepared to assist such extraordinary mass movement, and who will pay for these services? Which territories and states can accept people in such large numbers?

Although much of the world’s attention is focused on taking steps to decrease the impact of human activity on polar ice caps and CO2 emissions, there are still other climate change dangers that need to be addressed. One of UNHCR’s main concerns is to work collaboratively with states, IGOs, NGOs, and civil society to focus attention and resources on disaster risk reduction.

Disaster risk reduction seeks to avoid and limit the adverse impacts of climate change through a number of different strategies. These strategies include:

• Identifying and mapping regions particularly vulnerable to extreme weather events (i.e. flooding, storms, drought, fires, etc.);
• Improving information dissemination, public education, and early-forecasting systems;
• Prepositioning stockpiles of relief items for disaster-prone areas;
• Increasing capacities of state and non-state actors to react to emergencies;
• Augmenting adaptation funding to finance and assist developing nations with climate change projects (i.e., building sea walls, replanting forests, promoting agricultural sustainability).

States with populations living in vulnerable regions, or “hot spots,” must be convinced that the investment in identifying and mapping potential disaster areas will increase their ability to respond to emergencies. Mass transportation and evacuation plans will both preserve lives and resources and speed up reconstruction.

Technologies also exist that allow for enhanced forecasting and improved warning systems. These technologies must be put into service. Had there been a warning system for the 2004 South Asian tsunami, coastal communities would have had a full six hours to evacuate before the tsunami struck. With no such system in place, over 200,000 people died. Even wealthy countries like United States have learned the tragic lesson of inadequate contingency planning for extreme weather events, as illustrated by the mass destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the failure to establish a sufficiently coordinated response effort.

Unfortunately, many of the states whose populations will be forced to migrate due to gradual desertification, water scarcity, or susceptibility to extreme weather events already confront serious economic challenges. Advocacy for increasing climate change adaptation funding therefore becomes all the more crucial. This funding will help the developing world combat many of the problems created by the developed world. Furthermore, investing in climate change adaptation now will cost much less than disaster recovery later. This last point must be reemphasized leading up to the Copenhagen Climate Conference in 2009.

UNHCR’s role is to protect, shelter, and assist the world’s refugees, stateless persons, and internally displaced. Although there is no specific reference to assisting people displaced by climate change, we are inevitably called upon to help when there is need. UNHCR is already assisting people displaced by natural disasters. Examples include the great 2004 tsunami, the 2006 earthquake in Pakistan, and the 2008 floods in Myanmar and Yemen.

Climate change requires disaster management. UNHCR already has stocks prepositioned and staff deployed in the deep field. But there is no single state or set of organizations that has the capacity to tackle this challenge alone. It will take the combined synergies of the scientific, developmental, and humanitarian communities, and their resolve to work together, to find an integrated, effective solution.

L. Craig Johnstone is Deputy High Commissioner of UNHCR.