How to deal with extreme climatic disasters in future?
Since 1998, Odisha has been a victim of severity in climate extremes like heat waves, cyclones, floods and droughts.
Over
30,000 people have lost their lives, millions rendered homeless, trees
uprooted, crops damaged, and people lost wealth, resources and
livelihoods. Despite all the tall talks about disaster risk reduction,
early warning system and disaster preparedness, people still are sitting
duck for extreme climatic events.
The
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) recently released
Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to
Advance Climate Change Adaptation (SREX) is a great reminder for States
like Odisha on how to cope with future climate extremes and challenges
in view of rapid changes in climatic conditions.
Sustainable
development involves finding pathways that achieves a variety of
socio-economic and environmental goals, without sacrificing any one for
the sake of the others. Successful reconciliation of multiple goals lies
in answer to such questions as who is in control, who sets agendas, who
allocates resources, who mediates disputes, and who sets rules of the
game. This means that conflicts of interest must be acknowledged and
addressed, whether they are between Government departments or sectors.
The
effectiveness of actions to reduce, transfer and respond to current
levels of disaster risk could be vastly increased. Exploiting potential
synergies between disaster risk management and adaptation to climate
change will improve management of both current and future risks and
strengthen adaptation processes.
In
Asia, already over 90 per cent of the global population are exposed to
tropical cyclones. Based on data since 1950, evidence suggests that
climate change has changed the magnitude and frequency of some extreme
weather and climate events in some global regions already.
In
the next two or three decades, the expected increase in climate
extremes will probably be relatively small compared to the normal
year-to-year variations in such extremes. However, as climate change
impacts become more dramatic, its effect on a range of climate extremes
in Asia will become increasingly important and will play a more
significant role in disaster impacts. High level of vulnerability,
combined with more severe and frequent weather and climate extremes, may
occur in some places in Asia, such as low lying islands and coastal
areas.
Existing
risk management measures need to be improved as many countries are
poorly adapted to current extremes and risks. This would include a wide
range of measures such as early warning systems, land use planning,
development, enforcement of building codes, improvement to health
surveillance, ecosystem management and restoration.
A
new balance needs to be struck between measures to reduce risk. An
example is the introduction of index-based insurance for non irrigated
crops in Andhra Pradesh. Any delay in greenhouse gas mitigation is
likely to lead to more severe and frequent climate extremes in the
future and is likely to further contribute to disaster losses.
Evidence
suggests that climate change has led to changes in climate extremes
such as heat waves, record high temperatures and in many regions heavy
precipitation in the past half century, the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC) said. It added climate extremes or even a series
of non-extreme events, in combination with social vulnerabilities and
exposure to risks, can produce climate-related disasters.
While
some extreme weather and climate events lead to disasters, others do
not. Policies to avoid, prepare for, respond to and recover from the
risks of disaster can reduce the impact of these events and increase the
resilience of people exposed to extreme events, IPCC shows in the
report.
A
special event was organised in New Delhi during the first week of May
involving policymakers, business leaders, academics and civil society
organisations from South Asia to share and release the IPCC-SREX report
on disaster. The Delhi event forms one of a series of outreach events
taking place around the world from April to June in places like Havana
(Cuba), Beijing (China), Delhi (India), Bangkok (Thailand), Addis Ababa
(Ethiopia), Dakar (Senegal) which are designed to provide information
about the possible impacts of climate extremes and disasters by region,
and options for managing the potential risks arising from them. The
events are being organised by the IPCC, The Overseas Development
Institute (ODI), Norway’s Climate and Pollution Agency, Norway’s
Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Climate Development Knowledge
Network (CDKN).
The
environmental and social factors that influence the risk of disasters
vary from region to region, but many of the effective strategies for
dealing with disaster risk in a changing climate are similar. Increasing
exposure of people and economic assets has been the major cause of
long-term increases in economic losses from climate-related disasters.
Furthermore, the assessment indicates that in many regions of the world,
socio-economic factors will be among the main drivers of future
increases in related losses. However, many countries, including
developing countries, face severe challenges in coping with
climate-related disasters. For them the report is a rich source of
knowledge.
The
SREX provides an unprecedented level of details regarding observed and
expected changes in weather and climate extremes based on a
comprehensive assessment of over 1,000 scientific publications. The
report’s 592 pages cite thousands of scientific studies and have been
subjected to three rounds of review by experts and Governments to ensure
that the findings are firmly based in underlying scientific and
technical information. A total of 220 authors from 62 countries worked
on the report, for which 18,784 outside experts and Government review
comments were received in the three rounds of formal review.
The
report was originally proposed in 2008 by Norway and the UN
International Strategy for Disaster Reduction. The IPCC was established
in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) and the United
Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) to assess scientific information
related to climate change, evaluate its environmental and socio-economic
consequences and formulate realistic response strategies. The IPCC has
produced a series of Assessment Reports (in 1990, 1995, 2001 and 2007.)
The fifth assessment report will appear in four stages in 2013 and 2014.
It has also produced several Special Reports of which SREX is the
latest. It does not conduct any research itself or monitor
climate-related data. In 2007, the IPCC was awarded the Noble Peace
Prize with US Vice-President Al Gore.
Meanwhile,
there is a need for countries to reassess their vulnerability and
exposure in order to better manage disaster risk. This needs to be fully
integrated into planning processes, including through improved
continuous data collection for vulnerability and exposure to changing
floods and cyclone. It will be important to strengthening new and
existing partnerships for reducing risk, including with private sector
and bilateral and multilateral agencies. Mutual learning within a region
will be important. There is also a need to strengthen the integration
of financial and programming mechanisms to support adaptation and risk
management across development sectors. It will be also important to
highlight changing climate-related disaster risks to policy makers
working in other policy domains.
We
need to reaffirm the importance of mitigating greenhouse gases globally
in order to avoid the worst climate extremes and their associated
impacts across continents and regions. There must be consideration that
in some cases today’s climate extremes will be tomorrow’s ‘normal’
weather. Tomorrow’s climate extremes may therefore stretch our
imagination and challenge our capacity to mange change as never before.
And
finally, there is a need for a much smarter development and economic
policies that consider changing disaster risk as a core component.
Without this it is likely that an increasing number of people and assets
will be adversely impacted by future climate extremes and disasters.
(The writer is a senior freelance journalist)
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