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Researchers predict that the number of people affected by climate disasters will double by 2015. Our current capacity to respond to emergencies could be completely overwhelmed – unless governments acknowledge and respond to the growing threat, warns a report by Oxfam.

Climate Change Will Overload Humanitarian System, warns Oxfam

Link to Report: The Right to Survive: the Humanitarian Challenge for the Twenty-First Century

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21st April 09 ~ STWR

Climate Change Will Overload Humanitarian System, warns Oxfam

21st April 09 - John Vidal, Guardian (UK)

Emergency organisations could be overwhelmed within seven years by the rising number of people in poor countries affected by floods, droughts, heatwaves, wild fires, storms, landslides and other climate hazards.

Analysis by Oxfam International of the 6,500 climate-related disasters recorded since 1980 show that the numbers of people affected by extreme weather events, many of which are linked to climate change, has doubled in just 30 years and is expected to increase a further 54% to more than 375 million people a year on average by 2015. The figure does not include people hit by other disasters such as wars, earthquakes and volcanoes.

Worldwide emergency aid spending will have to be nearly doubled to at least $25bn (£17.2bn) a year to cope, says the report, The Right To Survive.

"Climate change is set to overload the humanitarian system and destroy the lives and livelihoods of people today and into the future. The system can barely cope with the current level of disasters and could be overwhelmed," said Oxfam's chief executive, Barbara Stocking.

Since the 1980s, the average number of people affected by climate-related disasters has risen from 121 million to 243 million a year. Reported major floods have quadrupled, peaking in 2007/8 when 23 African and 11 Asian countries experienced their worst in memory, heavy rains hit much of Central America, hurricanes created havoc in the Caribbean and cyclones devastated large swaths of Burma and Bangladesh.

The projected increase in climate-related disasters is expected to be driven by more small and medium-scale events which attract the least humanitarian assistance.

"While climate change increases people's exposure to disasters, it is their vulnerability to them that determines whether they survive, and if they do, whether their livelihoods are destroyed," says the report.

"In rich countries, an average of 23 people die in any given disaster, [but] in least-developed countries, the average is 1,052. Poor people live in poorly constructed homes, often on land more exposed to hazards such as floods, droughts, or landslides, and in areas without effective health services or infrastructure," it says.

In addition to the rise in extreme climatic events, people's vulnerability to natural disasters is increasing. "Rapid urbanisation in developing countries means that slums are expanding on to precarious land. The global food crisis is estimated to have increased the number of hungry people in the world to just under one billion. Now the global economic crisis is driving up unemployment and poverty, while undermining social safety nets".

Oxfam called for a fundamental review of the humanitarian aid system, saying that in addition to the $25bn a year for disaster relief, much more would be needed to adapt to future climate change. "A commitment to rich countries spending $42bn a year to help them adapt to unavoidable climate change is a vital first step and in the medium-term, developing countries will need at least $50bn a year."

The report adds: "Finance for adaptation is an obligation – it must be separate and additional to aid commitments, in the form of grants not loans, and disbursed through equitable governance mechanisms."

Oxfam condemned rich countries' reluctance to provide money for poor countries. "Adaptation finance is needed immediately so that developing countries can begin investing in projects to reduce vulnerability. So far, rich countries have pledged $18bn in one-off amounts and less than $1bn has been delivered. In the same time, countries have found trillions to bail out their banking sectors," says the report.

According to the UN's office of humanitarian affairs, there have been climate-related disasters in Burundi, Bangladesh, Madagascar, Colombia, Indonesia, Peru and Bolivia in the past eight weeks.

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Summary

April 09 - Oxfam International 

Each year, on average, almost 250 million people are affected by ‘natural’ disasters.[1] In a typical year between 1998 and 2007, 98 per cent of them suffered from climate-related disasters such as droughts and floods rather than, for example, devastating but relatively rare events such as earthquakes. According to new research for this report, by 2015 this could grow by more than 50 per cent to an average of over 375 million affected by climate-related disasters each year.[2]

Any such projection is not an exact science, but it is clear that substantially more people may be affected by disasters in the very near, not just distant, future, as climate change and environmental mismanagement create a proliferation of droughts, landslides, floods and other local disasters. And more people will be vulnerable to disasters because of their poverty and location.[3]

Some of these environmental changes will also increase the threat of new conflicts, which will mean more people displaced, and the need for more humanitarian aid. One recent report estimated that 46 countries will face a ‘high risk of violent conflict’ when climate change exacerbates traditional security threats.[4]

Already, there is evidence that the number of conflicts is again on the rise,[5] while the threat of long-running conflicts creating vast new humanitarian demands was painfully shown by the upsurge of violence in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo in 2008. In short, by 2015, an unprecedented level of need for humanitarian assistance could overwhelm the world’s current humanitarian capacity.

Already, many governments fail to cope with threats like storms, floods and earthquakes. They fail to act quickly or effectively enough in response to these events, or to take preventative action to reduce unnecessary deaths and suffering. Indeed, the very actions of some governments and their national elites place marginalised people at risk from disasters by discriminating against them, like those forced to live in flimsy slum housing so easily destroyed by floods and landslips.

At the same time, international humanitarian assistance is often too slow or inappropriate, and the UN-led reforms since 2005 to improve it have only begun to make a difference.

Challenge

The scale of the humanitarian challenge is unprecedented. National and donor governments, aid agencies, and others must act to improve the quality and quantity of humanitarian aid. Whether or not there is the political will to do this will be one of the defining features of our age, and will dictate whether millions live or die.

Even in daunting economic times, the world can afford to meet the humanitarian needs of every person struggling to survive a disaster. It is possible to reduce the threats from climate-related catastrophes. It is possible for governments to provide good-quality aid to their citizens.

And it will cost a tiny fraction of what rich countries spent on the global financial crisis since 2008 to provide decent humanitarian assistance to all those men, women, and children who, by 2015, may need it.

If all Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) governments simply gave as much (per head of their population) as the OECD’s ten most generous countries did in 2006, global humanitarian aid would increase to a total of $42bn.[6]

In 2008, European governments found $2.3 trillion to provide guarantees for their financial sectors: the German and UK governments alone found $68bn and $40bn to bail out just two banks, Hypo Real Estate and the Royal Bank of Scotland.[7] Decent aid, for every person in need, would be a bargain by comparison.

Rich governments must also take the lead in mitigating the impact of climate change, a key factor in driving the increased threat of disaster. In accordance with their responsibility (for greenhouse gas emissions) and capability (to mobilise resources), rich countries must cut global emissions so that global warming stays as far below 2°C as possible, and provide at least $50bn per year to help poor countries adapt to already unavoidable climate change.

But the governments of developing countries must also take greater responsibility for responding to disasters and reducing people’s vulnerability to them. The growth in localised climate-related shocks will hit people in developing countries hardest, because their homes and livelihoods will be most vulnerable. So developing countries will need to enable regional authorities and civil society to respond effectively.

More Vulnerable People

For millions of women and men worldwide it is their vulnerability – who they are, where they live, and how they make a living – and not the threats they face per se that will determine whether they survive. Vulnerability – to threats such as conflict or environmental hazards like floods and earthquakes – is a direct result of poverty; the political choices, corruption, and greed that cause it, and the political indifference that allows it to endure.

In 2008, in the devastated Haitian city of Gonaïves, Ogè Léandre, a 45-year-old father of six, had a lucky escape:

The water started to rise, and it did not stop … the water was already so high and strong that I could not hold on to one of my children and the water swept her away. Luckily someone was there to grab her. We got to the roof-top of the [hurricane] shelter, and, about an hour later, watched as our entire house was washed away.[8]

The tropical storms of 2008 wreaked havoc in Haiti. In Gonaïves alone, up to a quarter of the population were forced from their homes, as tens of thousands of poorly constructed and badly sited slum houses were swept away.9 Everywhere, poor people are the most vulnerable to being killed or made destitute by disasters. In rich countries, an average of 23 people die in any given disaster; in the least-developed countries this is 1,052.[10]

This is because poor people like Ogè and his children often live in poorly constructed homes on land threatened by flooding, drought, and landslips, and in areas without effective health services or infrastructure.

Some groups – women and girls, the chronically sick, the elderly, and others – are even more vulnerable, their ability to cope limited by discrimination, inequality, or their physical health. In both conflict and natural disaster, women’s and girls’ vulnerability to sexual violence and abuse increases as communities and families are broken up, and local authorities lose control of law and order.

For families living in poverty, the cumulative effect of more frequent disasters will drive them into a vicious cycle of vulnerability to further shocks. The poorer one is less resilient one’s livelihood, the fewer assets one has to sell to survive a crisis, and the longer it takes to recover.

A 2004 study of the impact of instances of low rainfall on subsistence farmers in Ethiopia found that it often took households years to recover from such shocks.[11]

Looking to the future, the point is this: for many of the world’s poor people, vulnerability to disaster may increase, and there are four trends that may drive this. First, there are far more people living in urban slums built on precarious land. Second, the increasing pressure on rural productive land, caused by drought, population density, and increasing demand for meat and dairy products in emerging economies, means that more people will find it difficult to get enough to eat.

Third, climate change, environmental degradation, and conflict may drive more people from their homes, stripping them of their livelihoods, assets, and their networks of family and communities that can support them.

Some estimates suggest that up to one billion people will be forced to move from their homes by 2050.[12] Finally, the global economic crisis that escalated in late 2008 may increase unemployment and undermine social safety nets which, in some countries, may contribute to increased humanitarian needs.

Choosing to Act

There are positive trends as well, and they can be built on. Not everyone has become more vulnerable to the rising number of disasters. In some countries, the proportion of people living in poverty has fallen, allowing more people to have secure homes and livelihoods, and to build up savings that help them recover from shocks.[13] Other countries have a proven record of saving lives.

In many countries, the death toll from disasters has been drastically reduced, not because there have been fewer disastrous events, but because governments have taken action to prepare for disasters and reduce risks. While Cyclone Sidr killed around 3,000 people in Bangladesh in 2007, this was a tiny fraction of the numbers killed by Cyclone Bhola in 1972 or even by Cyclone Gorky in 1991, despite the fact that these storms were similar in strength or weaker.

In countries like India, where the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act has created 900 million person-days of employment for rural people living in poverty, the advent of social protection mechanisms offers at least the hope that the cycle of disaster and poverty can be broken.[14] In Chile in May 2008, the eruption of Mount Chaitén – the first in recorded history – was met with a speedy response, including the deployment of civil defence teams and the evacuation of 8,000 people.[15]

State Responsibility

As with any human right, the state is the principal guarantor of its citizens’ right to life. And the impetus to make the state deliver better life-saving assistance is often the action of citizens holding their governments to account. In Indonesia, Oxfam works with Flores Integrated Rural Development (FIRD), a local organisation working in disaster management and response. Their mediation between local villages and the district government has helped to transform the delivery of aid. Dr Syrip Tintin of FIRD explains:

Before, the district government would have to go and give support [to local communities] in distributing relief. But now they are the ones who come to the district government and say ‘we are ready; what can you do next?’. [16]

In conflict as well as disasters, civil-society organisations can influence the way affected people are treated, and support them in demanding that governments uphold their rights. In August 2008, up to 130,000 people were displaced in Georgia, in and around the disputed regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Organisations like the Georgian Young Lawyers Association played a vital role in ensuring that those affected knew what help they were entitled to, and that the national authorities provided it.[17]

"Many displaced people do not know how to register, nor do they know of their rights... We are giving legal aid and providing legal representation to people affected". - Besarion Boxasvili (GYLA).[18]

But for every government that acts to protect lives in the face of threats such as storms and conflict, there are far too many that fail. Sometimes this is because they are simply overwhelmed by the weight of disasters. Even Cuba, one of the countries best prepared for disasters, failed to prevent tropical storm-related deaths in 2008, following four successive hurricanes.

But others fail through choice. Governments often blame their failure to invest in disaster preparedness on economic constraints. But the fact that some poor states have implemented successful measures to reduce the risk of disasters shows that this is no adequate excuse.

Some governments actively abuse their own citizens or those of occupied territories. Others, as well as some non-state actors, are complicit in the deliberate manipulation and denial of humanitarian aid. In 2007, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon reported that conflict was limiting or preventing humanitarian access to over 18 million people in countries like Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, and Afghanistan either due to general insecurity or deliberate obstruction.[19]

International Assistance

International aid organisations play a crucial role, both in acting directly to save lives where governments fail, and working to support governments that choose to act responsibly. Humanitarian organisations, both local and international, regularly demonstrate enormous skill, commitment, and courage in delivering essential aid to those who need it most, in countries from Chad to Burma/Myanmar. In 2007, more than 43 million people benefited from humanitarian assistance provided under UN appeals.[20] In November 2008, Oxfam was directly assisting 3.3 million people with humanitarian needs.[21]

In 2007 in Bolivia, Oxfam worked alongside local government agencies to quickly and effectively respond to serious floods, and to adapt the agricultural system to cope with regular flooding and drought, to improve soil fertility, and make the land productive. The construction of elevated seedbeds, camellones, now prevents seasonal floodwater destroying food crops.[22]

But too often, international humanitarian agencies pay scant regard to working with national or local governments (or with local civil-society organisations, such as national Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies).

In pursuing the ‘default’ option of providing assistance directly, international organisations too often give the impression that they are absolving governments of their obligations and reducing the likelihood of basic services being restored in the future. That is not to say that international humanitarian organisations should never act directly to save lives – rather, that working through government and civil-society partners is preferable where it is feasible.

Too much humanitarian aid is still inappropriate and poorly targeted. Too often, humanitarian assistance does not take account of the specific needs of different groups, like women and men for instance. The vulnerability of women and girls to sexual violence, for example, may actually be increased by poorly designed aid projects.

Nor is the humanitarian system well set up to deal with the increasing number of local climate disasters. In the past, traditional responses to large-scale catastrophes have often been centralised, logistics-heavy interventions. In the future, humanitarian organisations will need to focus more on building local capacity to help prevent, prepare for, and respond to this proliferation of climate-related shocks.

The current level of humanitarian funding is still far too low to meet even today’s humanitarian needs. The world spent more on video games in 2006 than it did on international humanitarian assistance.[23] The significant amount of aid already coming from non-OECD humanitarian donors, from the Middle East and elsewhere, should also of course be increased.

The issue is not just one of quantity, however. Too much money, from OECD and non-OECD donors alike, is allocated according to the political or security interests of governments – or according to whichever disaster is on the television screens of each country – rather than impartially on the basis of humanitarian need.

Comparing the global response to the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 with the response to the conflict in Chad in the same year, the 500,000 people assisted after the tsunami received an average of $1,241 each in official aid, while the 700,000 recipients of aid in Chad received just $23 each.[24]

Building a Safer Future

The humanitarian challenge of the twenty-first century is this: an increasing total of largely local catastrophic events, increasing numbers of people vulnerable to them, too many governments failing to prevent or respond to them, and an international humanitarian system unable to cope. In the face of that, disaster-affected people need:

• A far greater focus on building national governments’ capacity to respond to disasters – and, where needed, challenging those governments to use it;

• A far greater focus on helping people, and national governments, to become less vulnerable to disasters; and

• An international humanitarian system that acts quickly and impartially to provide effective and accountable assistance – complementing national capacity, and sometimes providing the aid that national governments fail to.

That will require the following:

Building State Responsibility and Empowering Affected People

• Governments must reinforce national and local capacity to respond in emergencies and to reduce people’s vulnerability; donor governments and others must substantially increase their support to help them do that; • Communities must be empowered to demand that governments and others fulfil their obligations to safeguard their lives, as well as to respond to and prepare for disasters themselves; and

• The international community, including regional organisations, must use mediation and diplomacy far more robustly to press states to assist their own citizens.

Reducing Vulnerability

• National governments must:

Adopt disaster risk-reduction measures combining early warning, preparedness plans, effective communication, and grassroots community mobilisation;

Invest in sustainable livelihoods so that people have secure incomes and food;
Improve urban planning so that people living in slums are housed in more disaster-resistant dwellings and in areas that are less subject to environmental risk; and

Invest in Public Services and Infrastructure so that Public-Health Risks are Reduced

• All parties must take assertive and effective action to reduce conflicts. This is the subject of a companion Oxfam report, ‘For a Safer Tomorrow’, which contains detailed recommendations;[25] and

• In line with their responsibility (for causing climate change) and their capability (to pay), rich country governments must lead in cutting global emissions so that global warming stays as far below a 2°C global average temperature increase as possible, and provide at least $50bn per year to help poor countries adapt to climate change; see the Oxfam Briefing Paper, ‘Climate Wrongs and Human Rights’.[26]
Improving international assistance

• Governments, donors, the UN, and humanitarian agencies must ensure that humanitarian needs are properly assessed; and that aid is implemented impartially, according to need, and to appropriate international standards, accountable to its beneficiaries, sensitive to particular vulnerabilities (including by gender, age, and disability), and supporting and building on local capacity wherever possible;

• Donor governments and others must substantially increase their support to developing country governments to reduce vulnerability to disasters;

• Non-OECD donors must follow the same standards as OECD ones, to provide aid in the above way; OECD donors should do much more to include non-OECD donors in their co-ordination mechanisms• UN agencies must provide better leadership and co-ordination of the international humanitarian response. Individual NGO and UN organisations must support a more co-ordinated international response, supportive of national authorities, while preserving their independence; and

• Donors must work much more closely together to ensure that there is adequate funding to support timely, effective, and good-quality humanitarian action. Increasing humanitarian aid to $42bn a year would be a vital first step.

References:

[1] The causes and impact of disasters are often anything but natural. Disasters are the interaction of environmental shocks (storms, floods, and droughts) with human vulnerability (who one is, where one lives, and how one makes a living) creating risk: the danger of losing life and livelihood. Other exacerbating factors include environmental mismanagement, such as the failure to maintain infrastructure such as dams and flood defences.

[2] For details of this projection please see ‘Forecasting the numbers of people affected annually by natural disasters up to 2015’, internal Oxfam study, April 2009, available at www.oxfam.org

[3] United Nations (2007) Disaster Risk Reduction: Global Review 2007, p. 25.

[4] D. Smith and J. Vivekananda (2007) ‘A Climate of Conflict: the Links between Climate Change, Peace and War’, London: International Alert, www.international-alert.org/climate_change.php.

[5] See the University of Uppsala Conflict Data Programme, www.pcr.uu.se/research/UCDP/index.htm (last accessed November 2008).

[6]Last available figures. Throughout this report, figures are in US dollars unless otherwise stated.

[7] For Europe-wide bail-out, see ‘EU leaders endorse continent-wide bailout’, CBS News, 15 October 2008, www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/10/15/world/main4524028.shtml?source=RSSattr=Business_4524028 (last accessed November 2008). For Hypo Real Estate example, see ‘Germany clinches bank rescue deal’, BBC News, 6 October 2008, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7653868.stm (last accessed November 2008). For the Royal Bank of Scotland example, see ‘UK banks receive £37bn bail-out’, BBC News, 13 October 2008, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7666570.stm (last accessed November 2008).

[8] Oxfam International (2008) ‘Haiti situation “at breaking point”’, press release, 8 September 2008, www.oxfamamerica.org/whatwedo/where_we_work/camexca/news_publications/the-water-started-to-rise-and-it-did-not-stop (last accessed November 2008).

[9] UN Stabalisation Mission in Haiti (2008) ‘Gonaïves, deux semaines après le déluge!’, www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900sid/RMOI-7JNJMU?OpenDocument&rc=2&cc=hti (last accessed November 2008).

[10] IFRC (2007) ‘Climate Change and the International Federation’, background note distributed to IFRC national societies.

[11] S. Dercon (2004) ‘Growth and shocks’, Journal of Development Economics 74(2): 309–29.

[12] Christian Aid (2007) ‘Human Tide: the Real Migration Crisis’, London: Christian Aid, www.christianaid.org.uk/stoppoverty/climatechange/resources/human_tide.aspx (last accessed November 2008).

[13] Asian Development Bank (2004) ‘Fighting Poverty in Asia and the Pacific: The Poverty Reduction Strategy of the Asian Development Bank’, www.adb.org/Documents/Policies/Poverty_Reduction/mission.asp?p=policies (accessed November 2008).

[14] I. MacAuslan (2008) ‘India’s National Rural Employment Guarantee Act: a case study for how change happens’, background paper for D. Green (2008) From Poverty to Power, Oxford: Oxfam International, see www.fp2p.org

[15] Reuters (2008) ‘Vast Chile volcano ash cloud partially collapses’, 13 May 2008, www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900sid/KHII-7EM89T?OpenDocument&rc=2&cc=chl (last accessed November 2008).

[16] Interview with Jane Beesley, Oxfam GB, March 2008.

[17] Interview with Marie Cacace, Oxfam GB, August 2008.

[18] Ibid.

[19] Ban Ki-moon (2007) ‘Secretary-General’s Report on the Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict’, op.cit.

[20] Figures compiled from UN consolidated appeals data, see www.humanitarianappeal.net (last accessed November 2008).

[21] Unpublished research carried out for Oxfam GB’s Humanitarian Department.

[22] For more information on this project, see www.oxfam.org.uk/oxfam_in_action/impact/success_stories/bolivia_farming.html (last accessed November 2008).

[23] See PricewaterhouseCoopers (2007) ‘Entertainment and Media Outlook 2007-11’, http://www.pwc.co.uk/eng/publications/global_entertainment_and_media_outlook_2007_2011.html (last accessed November 2008).

[24] Figures derived from UN OCHA’s Financial Tracking Service (FTS), http://ocha.unog.ch/fts2/ last accessed November 2008, and UN Consolidated Appeal documents, www.humanitarianappeal.net (last accessed November 2008).

[25] Oxfam International (2008) ‘For a Safer Tomorrow: Protecting Civilians in a Multipolar World’, Oxford: Oxfam International.

[26] Oxfam International (2008) ‘Climate Wrongs and Human Rights: Putting People at the Heart of Climate Change Policy’, Oxford: Oxfam International. 

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