28
June -- Climate-change impacts are creating new complex emergencies
around the world, above all in Africa, according to speakers
at a conference in The Hague organized by the Red Cross Red
Crescent Climate Centre.
The rapid succession of drought-flood-drought was causing almost
permanent disaster conditions in some parts of Africa, according
to Abdishakur Othowai, drought project manager at the Kenya
Red Cross. Large numbers of people were being displaced and
ending up in camps, where the HIV rate then soared.
“Once people would have thought all this was an act of
God,” Othowai added, “but it’s been going
on for ten years now and they’re saying the weather has
changed, the climate has changed.”
“There is no single, normal season; no cropping season
for farmers.
“Our policy now is to tell people that we have to adapt
because this phenomenon will be with us for a very long time.”
Opening the conference, on “the humanitarian consequences
of climate change”, International Federation deputy secretary
general Ibrahim Osman said global warming had also “intensified
conflict and tension in places like Darfur” and was now
“a International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement issue”.
The Red Cross Red Crescent, according to Osman, had always focused
on humanitarian consequences rather than the scientific debate
about the role of carbon emissions.
Climate change would be prominent on the agenda of the Movement’s
international conference this November, he said, where spreading
knowledge about vulnerabilities and pledging more resources
would be “the two main pillars.”
The Movement should work mainly on the humanitarian consequences
of extreme weather, as this was already covered by its long-standing
mandate, according to Madeleen Helmer, head of the Climate Centre,
which is hosted by the Netherlands Red Cross and was set up
in 2002 as a reference point for Red Cross and Red Crescent
Societies.
Many environmental organizations were already campaigning on
carbon emissions, said Helmer, but hardly anyone was looking
seriously at what climate-change impacts were doing to vulnerable
people in poor countries.
A few speakers – Allan Bachan of the Trinidad and Tobago
Red Cross, for example – said their National Societies
were also getting involved in explicitly environmental work.
“Adapt everything”
The conference, which ended yesterday, brought together Red
Cross and Red Crescent disaster managers from the regions of
the world most affected by climate-change impacts, including
the small-island nations of the Pacific and Caribbean, and Africa,
Asia and the Americas, as well as European Societies, the International
Federation and the International Committee of the Red Cross
(ICRC).
Walter Cotte, the veteran disaster manager of the Colombian
Red Cross, said that because of climate change his country’s
two rainy seasons now sometimes joined up to make one.
Miriam Chin of the Palau Red Cross told delegates that because
of rising sea levels “fifty years from now my country
will be gone unless strategies are put in place”.
The representative from Tuvalu Red Cross, Tataua Pese, said
people there were being set against each other as land disappeared:
“Our highest point is only four metres above sea level.
We are 100 per cent vulnerable to this problem.”
“Disasters are translating themselves into chronic situations,”
said Ian Burton, a scientific adviser to the Climate Centre
and a leading contributor to “Working Group II”
– on impacts and adaptation – of the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change. There was an urgent need for “a
long-term strategy”.
“We have to adapt everything,” he said.
Weather-related disasters
The International Federation was one of the first non-environmental
organizations to acknowledge the threat climate-change impacts
pose to vulnerable people.
Its concerns were first raised in the 1999 World Disasters Report,
which has consistently highlighted the sharp increase in weather-related
disasters over the past decade.
Earlier this year the International Federation’s annual
appeal for the first time identified climate change as a key
priority.
Thirty Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies are now running
programmes designed by the Climate Centre to integrate climate
risks into the existing Red Cross Red Crescent disaster risk
reduction efforts.
Nahr el-Bared - field report from the Lebanese Red Cross
(20 May to 26 June)
Despite announcements that military operations in the Palestinian
refugee camp of Nahr el-Bared had ended, fighting between the
Lebanese army and Fatah al-Islam continues. The ongoing violence
is hampering relief and evacuation operations carried out by
the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) inside the camp, working
with the Lebanese Red Cross (LRC), in cooperation with the International
Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
An intermittent lull allowed more than 5,000 families (around
22,000 persons) to flee Nahr el-Bared, but, according to unconfirmed
reports, several hundred families may still be inside Nahr el-Bared
camp. They face very difficult living conditions, with no power
or water, no means of livelihood, and shortages of medical items
and food.
Because of the fighting it is becoming harder and harder to
bring supplies into the camp and evacuate the wounded and civilians.
The most recent delivery of aid to Nahr el-Bared camp, 760 kilos
of food, took place on 20 June.
From 20 May to 26 June, in cooperation with the PRCS, and in
coordination with the ICRC and the Lebanese army, Lebanese Red
Cross emergency medical teams transported 450 wounded people,
59 corpses, 320 sick people and 1016 civilians fleeing the camp.
Aid is also being provided to displaced families in the Palestinian
camp of Beddawi. Over that period, some 70 tonnes of food were
provided. LRC volunteers are also documenting the number of
displaced persons in Beddawi camp and evaluating their needs.
Since 13 June, LRC youth volunteers have been managing two displacement
centres at Beddawi camp set up in two public schools, containing
87 families (nearly 500 people). Working in cooperation with
PRCS volunteers they are distributing food parcels and humanitarian
aid, and have set up welfare, cultural and health information
activities for children, youth and women, as well as psychological
support programmes.
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Climate
change and desertification worsen the water and sanitation
situation in many countries. People like this woman in
Ethiopia try to dig holes to collect water when it does
rain. (p-ETH0063) (Daniel Cima/American Red Cross)
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Nearly
40 National Societies sent delegates to the conference
in The Hague. (p15858)
Nearly 40 National Societies sent delegates to the conference
in The Hague. (p15857)
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