Madeleen Helmer, head of the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Center in The Hague
Climate change is exacerbating extreme weather events and patterns around the world, leading to more frequent and intense disasters. Sadly, it is the poor, the elderly and the disabled who are bearing the brunt of increasing floods and cyclones, relentless droughts and rising sea levels. Ultimately they are the ones who are paying the price with their homes, their crops and their lives.
The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) confirms our worst fears – that vulnerable groups are at greatest risk when it comes to climate change.
It is time for the entire international community to understand and accept that traditional ways of thinking about disaster response no longer apply. Experts expect that there will be more and more floods, droughts and heat waves, making it harder for poor people to pick up the pieces and stretching the resources of aid agencies further and further.
Now is the time to start preparing vulnerable communities for the worst. Climate change is one of the main risks and challenges facing humanity today. It’s already happening and it’s going to get worse before it gets better, because of the longevity of the greenhouse gasses already in the atmosphere.
For too many years, climate change has been regarded as a predominantly scientific and environmental issue. However, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies has already witnessed climate change strike at the very heart of its work, supporting vulnerable people, particularly in times of disaster.
Our volunteers, staff and field delegates around the world are dealing with this reality each day.
Since the start of 2007 alone, extreme flooding in Jakarta, Mozambique and Bolivia has left hundreds of thousands of people homeless, resulting in the large-scale mobilization of resources and thousands of volunteers.
In the Pacific, slowly rising sea levels are starting to take a heavy toll on the natural systems that islanders depend on for their livelihoods and well-being. In many parts of Africa, rising temperatures are resulting in malaria outbreaks at higher and higher altitudes.
Even in rich countries, it is the elderly, the poor and the sick, who are hardest hit by extreme weather events, such as heat waves and hurricanes.
Wealthy nations are beginning to acknowledge that climate change is real, and are looking to invest billions of dollars in flood management, cooling systems, and desalination plants in order to protect themselves against climate change. Sadly, far less is being done for poorer countries.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies knows that tackling climate change is not just a question of coming up with policies and funding mechanisms to reduce greenhouse gases. As illustrated by the IPCC report, the international community’s collective responsibilities must go beyond reducing emissions – we must also do more to protect the world’s most vulnerable people.
Early warning systems, typhoon resistant housing, planting trees against storm surges and landslides, evacuation plans: these are just some examples of how governments and aid agencies can make communities better prepared and more resilient in the first place.
It is clear that climate change is something that we can neither escape from nor ignore. We need to pre-empt its impact and we need to act now.