THUA THIEN-HUE — In the ancient Thanh Toan tile-roofed bridge in central Thua Thien-Hue Province’s Thuy Thanh Commune, several pupils from Thuy Thanh Primary School are drawing passionately. The kids are too busy to talk as they take part in a competition on climate change and disaster risk reduction.
Such activities have been regularly organised for more than two years in the central province which is most affected by disasters, including floods and storms.
La Hong Yen, 9, is drawing a picture of the world divided into two parts, before and after, to show the negative outlook of climate change: deforestation and waste discharge.
“The world will be a black colour in my picture,” Yen said, adding that pupils at her schools were taught how to prepare for storms.
She said she was also taught to swim and other skills through activities like games, singing and storytelling.
The project to improve community ability for community-based disaster risk reduction was implemented two years ago.
The main purpose of the project was to increase people’s awareness and local authorities’ risk management, especially in rural and remote areas, with an aim to limiting losses of assets as well as people and assisting sustainable development.
In reality, the risk management projects based on communities were launched in 2001 in Thua Thien-Hue and Quang Tri provinces. In 2003, the projects were implemented in nine provinces in the central region; and in 2008 in 23 provinces in the Red River Delta, northern mountainous areas and Mekong Delta region.
More than 6,000 communes nationwide have implemented the project.
However, consequences and losses caused by disasters have been heavy as communities lack awareness on preparing for floods and storms.
Viet Nam is one of 10 countries in the world which have been regularly affected by disasters due to its special conditions. Floods, storms, landslides, droughts and sea encroachment have occurred every year, destroying and taking the lives of the poor and most vulnerable people including children, women, farmers and fishers.
“As many as 500 people are killed annually in the country due to disasters, causing losses of 1.3-1.5 per cent of the country’s total GDP per year,” said Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Dao Xuan Hoc at a Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) National Meeting in central Da Nang City.
The event was part of the national week on DRR held by Joint Advocacy Network Initiative (JANI), including non-governmental organisations of CARE, Development Workshop of France (DW), Plan, Save the Children, ADRA, Centre for International Studies and Co-operation, World Vision and ActionAid.
It was held simultaneously in Nghe An, Kon Tum, Thua Thien-Hue, Quang Tri and Da Nang City with the overarching theme “Invest for Safer Tomorrow, Increased Investment in Local Action”.
Peter Newsum, country director of CARE in Viet Nam, said the country had been considered as a typical example of timely rescue works after floods and storms.
“However, Viet Nam needs a consistent and sustainable investment into efforts to reduce risks among communities in localities,” he said, adding that the country had proved that enhancing investment into disaster risk reduction activities could improve local communities abilities to respond and reduce the effects of disasters.
“Disaster risk management was closely linked to climate change, exposing a question of awareness on better preparations as disasters come,” Newsum said.
Nguyen Van Gia, Head of Emergency Programme Sector from Save the Children Organisation in Viet Nam said increasing awareness for children was necessary as they could be most vulnerable to disasters.
“The project provided experiences in preventing disasters with a focus on skills of first aid, escape routes and finding safe locations in schools,” Gia said.
“Pupils who are provided with the training have skills and abilities to respond to disasters, not only for themselves but their families and communities.”
DW country director Guillanme Chantry said a survey on local governance for DRR in 69 countries including Viet Nam showed there was anticipation and hope but also frustration and many concerns.
“The situation is getting worse, not better, as 57 per cent of local authorities and communities at most risk report that disaster losses are increasing,” Chantry said.
Local action was not taking place at anywhere near the levels required to achieve the goal of a substantial reduction in disaster losses by 2015, Chantry said. Progress at national level was not being matched by progress at local level.
Surveys of local capacities for DRR in the country’s 17 provinces received the same comment: “We have the capacity and plans for action but we lack financial resources.”
Chantry said the survey indicated that losses from natural disasters were increasing.
In a commune in coastal Thua Thien-Hue Province which faces annual floods and storms, the budget for disaster prevention and relief was less than US$1 per household, Chantry said.
“This amount was increased in case of actual disasters but it is insufficient to cover prevention activities, losses and damages.”
Chantry said DRR should be allocated more funds, mostly for the poor in rural areas including the highlands.
“Viet Nam has achieved great success in DRR for policy, organisation and planning for 10 years. However, more resources are needed to implement this strategy at local level.”
Funds were needed to assess plans and to fund practical measures to reduce the impact of disasters in a climate changing context, he said.
“We should consider DRR as an investment not a cost.”
Chantry said the Government, provinces, communes with international support, public private partnership and full participation of vulnerable communities should work together in designing and implementing DRR plans for the next 10 years.
Crise ivoirienne :Le Burkina tente d’amortir le choc (DWF Projet Construction sans bois au Burkina)
Comme il fallait s’y attendre les effets de la crise n’ont pas tardé à se ressentir sur la vie quotidienne des Burkinabè. La Côte d’Ivoire est le premier partenaire économique du Burkina Faso en Afrique. Plusieurs produits de grande consommation du Burkina proviennent des unités industrielles ivoiriennes ou transitent par le port international d’Abidjan. Depuis le début de la crise post électorale tout a changé.
Les échanges commerciaux entre le Burkina et la Côte d’Ivoire ont considérablement diminué depuis le début de la crise. Les consommateurs le constatent chez les commerçants. Les prix de certains ont grimpé sur le marché. Dans les petites boutiques de quartiers, le litre d’huile alimentaire est passé de 700 à 1000f CFA. Le sac de riz est passé de 13 000 à 19 000f chez certains commerçants. Les prix d’autres produits tels que la farine de blé, les pattes alimentaires, le savon, les matériaux de construction, les plastiques ont aussi connu une hausse depuis que les transporteurs ont arrêté d’aller en Côte d’Ivoire. Cette hausse est liée d’abord aux difficultés de transport. Le trafic ferroviaire sur lequel compte le Burkina pour ses importations n’est plus normal. Les camions poids lourds burkinabè ne veulent pas prendre de risque en empruntant ce corridor. “Officiellement la frontière entre le Burkina et la Cote D’ivoire n’est pas fermée. Mais nos camions ne peuvent pas aller au delà de la zone rebelle. La sécurité n’y est pas garantie. Les camions burkinabè sont mal vus dans cette partie. Personne ne veut y aller” explique un transporteur. Mais ce n’est pas tout. Les forces nouvelles ont décidé dans leur stratégie d’instaurer un blocus pour asphyxier la partie sous contrôle de Laurent Gbagbo. Aucun camion ne peut donc ravitailler cette partie de la Côte d’Ivoire. Certains transporteurs ont même eu des propositions alléchantes pour aller transporter des marchandises bloqués à Abidjan mais rares sont ceux qui acceptent prendre ce risque. “Certains commerçants ont toujours leurs marchandises bloqués à Abidjan et ils nous font même de bonnes propositions sur le prix mais c’est difficile” confie ce transporteur. Le problème de transport n’est malheureusement pas la seule difficulté d’approvisionnement du marché burkinabè en produits ivoiriens. La plupart des entreprises ivoiriennes sont aujourd’hui en difficulté. Celles qui arrivent à tenir malgré la crise ont été obligées de revoir leur production à la baisse faute de matières premières mais aussi en raison des tensions de trésorerie. Elles ne peuvent plus satisfaire le marché ivoirien. Une sous production qui provoque une raréfaction de certains produits ivoiriens sur le marché burkinabè.
La solution alternative des importateurs
Malgré tout, pour le moment il n y a pas de rupture en produits de première nécessité au Burkina du fait de la crise en Côte d’Ivoire. Les importateurs burkinabè ont tout de suite trouvé des produits de remplacement aux produits provenant des unités industrielles ivoiriennes selon le directeur général des douanes. Désormais, le port de Lomé et celui de Tema sont les principaux ports utilisés par les importateurs burkinabè. Ces solutions alternatives ne sont pas spontanées. C’est la crise de 2002 qui aurait servi de leçon aux importateurs Burkinabè. “On a beaucoup souffert de la crise en 2002 au Burkina. On a compris qu’il ne faut pas compter sur un seul corridor. Les importateurs ont diversifié leurs sources. Ce qui fait que les effets de la crise actuelle ne sont pas bien ressentis dans la vie des Burkinabè comme ce fut le cas en 2002” explique le directeur général des douanes. Ousmane Guiro est formel. La présente crise ne peut bloquer l’économie du Burkina. Les commerçants burkinabè ont trouvé une solution alternative. Ils se sont tournés vers le Ghana et le Togo pour les importations. Mais cela à un coût supplémentaire sur les prix des produits. Certains petits commerçants confrontés chaque jour à cette hausse font supporter les coûts supplémentaires au consommateur?: “la plupart des produits ont connu une hausse. Nos fournisseurs nous expliquent qu’ils ne peuvent pas nous vendre au même prix parce que les coûts de transport ont augmenté. Nous n’avons pas d’autre choix que de tenir compte des nouveaux prix pour vendre.” Nous explique un commerçant. Le Burkina était dépendant du train dans ses importations. Le parc de camions poids lourds ne suffit pas à répondre aux besoins. Ce sont les camions ghanéens qui approvisionnaient en partie le Burkina. Aujourd’hui, ces camions ont trouvé mieux ailleurs avec la crise. Le cacao ivoirien ne peut plus sortir par le port d’Abidjan. L’Union européenne a interdit l’accostage aux ports de Côte d’Ivoire. Le cacao passe désormais par les ports du Ghana. Et ce sont les camions ghanéens qui transportent ce cacao. Ce qui crée des difficultés pour certains importateurs burkinabè qui comptaient jusque là sur les camions ghanéens pour transporter leurs marchandises au Burkina. Une partie du parc burkinabè existant ravitaille aussi la zone rebelle de la Côte d’Ivoire. En 2002 le Burkina a perdu plusieurs milliards en recettes du fait de la crise, obligeant le gouvernement à revoir le budget national. Cette fois ci, le directeur général des douanes rassure que la crise ivoirienne n’entrainera pas trop de pertes en recettes au niveau du Burkina. Les chiffres ne donnent pas de grands écarts entre l’an passé à la même période et cette année, sur le corridor de la Cote d’Ivoire. Les bureaux de Niangoloko, de Bobo-Dioulasso et de Ouaga gare ont même connu une légère hausse en recettes par rapport à l’an passé selon le premier responsable des douanes.
Des pertes en exportation
Le Burkina ne perd pas uniquement en importation. La Côte d’Ivoire est le principal client du Burkina sur certains produits tels que le bétail, les boissons, le tabac. Le Burkina utilise beaucoup le train dans ses exportations de coton à partir du port d’Abidjan. Cela n’est plus possible avec la crise. Ce sont les autres corridors que la Sofitex utilise pour acheminer le coton. Ce qui revient plus cher à supporter comme charge. Le directeur général de la Sofitex soutient que l’utilisation des corridors autres qu’Abidjan va entrainer un surcoût de 25f par kilogramme de fibre de coton. C’est surtout par les ports de Tema et de Lomé que transite le coton burkinabè. Ces ports sont aujourd’hui encombrés. Mais ce n’est pas seulement le Burkina qui a besoin de la Côte d’Ivoire. Autant les pays de l’hinterland ont besoin de la Côte d’Ivoire, autant la Côte d’Ivoire a besoin de ces pays. En 2008, la part de recettes ivoiriennes provenant des transactions avec l’UEMOA représentait 13% selon les chiffres de la BECEAO. Le Burkina est le premier client de la Côte d’Ivoire au sein de l’UEMOA avec près de 30% des exportations vers les autres pays de la communauté. Le Burkina est aussi, l’un des principaux fournisseurs de la Côte d’Ivoire. Moussa Zongo
HO CHI MINH CITY, 1 March 2011 (IRIN) - Vietnam’s inflation rate is among Southeast Asia’s highest and its population is struggling to keep up with sharp increases in food, fuel and electricity prices.
On 1 March the government increased electricity prices by a record 15 percent to an average 1,242 dong (US 6 cents) per kilowatt per hour. The week before, petrol prices were raised by 18 percent to 19,300 dong (93 cents) per litre.
In Vietnam, inflation has increased every month since August 2010, reaching 12.2 percent in January.
“Things are getting really uncertain,” said Nguyen Bich Hanh, 25, a public school teacher who lives on the outskirts of the capital, Ho Chi Minh City. “We are struggling to pay for electricity, and food [prices are] getting extreme.”
In the past two months, Nguyen said the price of high-quality rice, for example, had increased by almost one-third to 22,000 dong ($1.13) per kilogramme.
She earns $150 a month and spends most of it on food and transportation for her family of five.
The World Bank ranks Vietnam as a lower middle-income country. Still, worries about poverty run deep in a country where 80 percent of the population lives in rural areas and most of the workforce is agricultural.
Half the population lives on less than $2 a day, and many could slide into poverty because of economic shocks and natural disasters, according to AusAID, the Australian government’s aid agency.
Nguyen saves money by turning off the electricity at home at all times, and increasingly, by skipping meals.
“Fewer kids are coming to school because they need to help their families,” she said.
Coping
Sudden price fluctuations are forcing Vietnam’s poorest to find quick and creative ways of coping, said Ben Kerkvliet, a Vietnam scholar at the Canberra-based Australian National University.
“Many rural households in Vietnam have small gardens, small fish ponds or other aqua-raising opportunities, chickens or ducks… that help to feed their families,” he told IRIN. “In hard times, these sources of food become even more important.
“Youngsters in the household may go to school without school supplies. They may have to quit school altogether,” he added. So far, Vietnam has performed well in enrolling students in primary school and keeping them there.
In 2009, net enrolment in primary school was 97 percent and 88.5 percent of children who enter primary school complete at least five years, according to the UN office in Vietnam.
But should inflation increase sharply beyond current levels, said Kerkvliet, general stability could slide. “Should shortages of key commodities like rice and wheat become extreme, villagers are likely to protest in various parts of the country,” he said. “At present levels of inflation, the likely political change will be policies aimed at addressing the problems.”
This year, the government hopes to limit inflation to 7 percent, compared with 11.75 percent last year.
For Nguyen, poverty is more pressing than numbers on paper. “They say our country is becoming richer,” she said, “but this does not matter if regular people cannot afford anything.”
Likelihood of extreme rainfall may have been doubled by rising greenhouse-gas levels. NATURE N°470
Climate change may be hitting home. Rises in global average temperature are remote from most people’s experience, but two studies in this week’s Nature1,2 conclude that climate warming is already causing extreme weather events that affect the lives of millions. The research directly links rising greenhouse-gas levels with the growing intensity of rain and snow in the Northern Hemisphere, and the increased risk of flooding in the United Kingdom.
Insurers will take note, as will those developing policies for adapting to climate change. “This has immense importance not just as a further justification for emissions reduction, but also for adaptation planning,” says Michael Oppenheimer, a climate-policy researcher at Princeton University in New Jersey, who was not involved in the studies.
There is no doubt that humans are altering the climate, but the implications for regional weather are less clear. No computer simulation can conclusively attribute a given snowstorm or flood to global warming. But with a combination of climate models, weather observations and a good dose of probability theory, scientists may be able to determine how climate warming changes the odds. An earlier study3, for example, found that global warming has at least doubled the likelihood of extreme events such as the 2003 European heatwave.
More-localized weather extremes have been harder to attribute to climate change until now. “Climate models have improved a lot since ten years ago, when we basically couldn’t say anything about rainfall,” says Gabriele Hegerl, a climate researcher at the University of Edinburgh, UK. In the first of the latest studies1, Hegerl and her colleagues compared data from weather stations in the Northern Hemisphere with precipitation simulations from eight climate models (see page 378). “We can now say with some confidence that the increased rainfall intensity in the latter half of the twentieth century cannot be explained by our estimates of internal climate variability,” she says.
The second study2 links climate change to a specific event: damaging floods in 2000 in England and Wales. By running thousands of high-resolution seasonal forecast simulations with or without the effect of greenhouse gases, Myles Allen of the University of Oxford, UK, and his colleagues found that anthropogenic climate change may have almost doubled the risk of the extremely wet weather that caused the floods (see page 382). The rise in extreme precipitation in some Northern Hemisphere areas has been recognized for more than a decade, but this is the first time that the anthropogenic contribution has been nailed down, says Oppenheimer. The findings mean that Northern Hemisphere countries need to prepare for more of these events in the future. “What has been considered a 1-in-100-years event in a stationary climate may actually occur twice as often in the future,” says Allen.
But he cautions that climate change may not always raise the risk of weather-related damage. In Britain, for example, snow-melt floods may become less likely as the climate warms. And Allen’s study leaves a 10% chance that global warming has not affected — or has even decreased — the country’s flood risk.
Similar attribution studies are under way for flood and drought risk in Europe, meltwater availability in the western United States and drought in southern Africa, typical of the research needed to develop effective climate-adaptation policies. “Governments plan to spend some US$100 billion on climate adaptation by 2020, although presently no one has an idea of what is an impact of climate change and what is just bad weather,” says Allen.
Establishing the links between climate change and weather could also shape climate treaties, he says. “If rich countries are to financially compensate the losers of climate change, as some poorer countries would expect, you’d like to have an objective scientific basis for it.”
The insurance industry has long worried about increased losses resulting from more extreme weather (see ‘Fatal floods’), but conclusively pinning the blame on climate change will take more research, says Robert Muir-Wood, chief research officer with RMS, a company headquartered in Newark, California, that constructs risk models for the insurance industry. “This is a key part of our research agenda and insurance companies do accept the premise” that there could be a link, he says. “If there’s evidence that risk is changing, then this is something we need to incorporate in our models.” See Article in Nature
*
References
1. Min, S.-K. et al. Nature 470, 378-381 (2011). | Article
2. Pall, P. et al. Nature 470, 382-385 (2011). | Article
3. Stott, P. A. et al. Nature 432, 610-614
Emissions Punted to Durban, Breakthrough Seen on Forests
CANCÚN, Mexico, Dec 11, 2010 (IPS/TerraViva) - If success is measured by delaying difficult decisions, then the Cancún climate meeting succeeded by deferring crucial issues over financing and new targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to the next Conference of the Parties meeting a year from now in Durban, South Africa.
International negotiations to address climate change proceeded at a glacial pace in the palatial, over-air-conditioned Moon Palace Resort in Cancún. After two long weeks, final talks dragged on into the early hours of Saturday morning, with Bolivia’s refusal to accept a weak agreement that puts the world on a path that “could allow global temperatures to increase by more than four degrees”, said Pablo Solón, Bolivia’s chief negotiator.
In the end, Bolivia’s continued objections were drowned out by applause and cheering by more than 190 national delegations as the chair of the meeting, Mexico’s foreign secretary Patricia Espinosa, gaveled the meeting to a close declaring “a consensus without Bolivia”.
“The Cancún text is a hollow and false victory that was imposed without consensus,” Bolivia said in a final statement.
Based on the science, Bolivia is not wrong. The World Meteorological Organisation declared last week that the decade will close as the hottest 10- year period on record. The 100+ pages that form the “Cancún Agreements” will do nothing to curb greenhouse gas emissions warming the planet, but did revive the U.N. climate negotiation process after its near death in Copenhagen last year.
And most here believe this agreement sets the stage for a substantive agreement at the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP) of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Durban next December.
“I can’t disagree with Bolivia that based on the science, this agreement as it stands means four degrees C of warming,” said Kumi Naidoo, executive director of Greenpeace.
“The text of the agreement is not good enough, but it does save the process and maybe this gets us to a truly fair, ambitious and balanced treaty in Durban,” Naidoo told TerraViva.
“Governments have given a clear signal that they are headed towards a low- emissions future together,” declared UNFCCC executive secretary Christiana Figueres. The Cancún Agreements represent “the essential foundation on which to build greater, collective ambition”, Figueres said in a statement.
“It’s pathetic the world community struggles so much just to climb over such a low bar,” commented Naidoo, whose hometown is Durban, South Africa. “Our only real hope is to mobilise a broad-based climate movement involving all sectors of the public and civil society before Durban.”
Late Friday night in the hallways, the mood was surprisingly upbeat. Not only had the talks not collapsed, there was formal agreement on a number of issues. These included acknowledgement that emissions cuts needed to be in line with the science 25 to 40 percent cuts by 2020 - and the global temperature rise target should be kept below two degrees C instead of at two degrees C as the target in the Copenhagen Accord.
However, Japan, Canada, the United States and Russia successfully undermined any binding agreement on how to reach those targets by lobbying to abandon the Kyoto Protocol and replacing it with a weak pledge and review system as proposed in the Copenhagen Accord, according to Friends of the Earth International (FOEI). Current pledges under the accord translate into global temperature rises of three to five degrees C by most analyses.
“The agreement reached here is wholly inadequate and could lead to catastrophic climate change,” said Nnimmo Bassey, FOEI chair. Bassey is this year’s winner of the Right Livelihood Award - the ‘alternative Nobel Prize’ - for “revealing the full ecological and human horrors of oil production” in Nigeria, his home country.
Bassey said developed countries need to reduce their emissions by 40 percent under a new Kyoto Protocol commitment period with legally binding commitments.
The current Kyoto commitment to reduce emissions by five percent from 1990 levels ends in 2012. Most developed countries are meeting that target, with the notable exception of Canada, whose emissions have soared 30 percent.
Canada, Japan and Russia have declared they will not agree to a second Kyoto commitment. The U.S. refused to ratify the first Kyoto commitment and rejects the second as well. Those positions nearly derailed the talks since developing countries have long insisted rich countries agree to binding reductions under Kyoto. Agreeing to disagree, the final fight for Kyoto has been punted to Durban.
A Global Climate Fund was also agreed to with a $100-billion commitment by 2020, with a re-commitment of $35 billion by 2012 to help developing countries reduce their emissions and adapt to impacts of climate change. The fund will be managed by a board with equal representation from developed and developing countries with funding channeled through the World Bank for the first three years.
Tropical forest protection may be the big breakthrough coming out of Cancún. Delegates adopted a decision that establishes a three-phase process for tropical countries to reduce deforestation and receive compensation from developed countries, and it includes protections for forest peoples and biodiversity. Deforestation presently contributes 15 to 20 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.
“This is so much better than what we had in Copenhagen,” said Peg Putt of the Wilderness Society, a U.S.-based conservation group.
“There was official recognition of the multiple benefits of forests and ecosystem integrity,” Putt told TerraViva.
Loopholes have been closed and good progress made on tackling the drivers of deforestation, she said. Much work is left to do to strengthen safeguards and work out the details for a new financial tool called REDD (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation).
REDD remains very controversial. It is widely touted as a way to mobilise $10 to $30 billion annually to protect forests by selling carbon credits to industries in lieu of reductions in emissions.
“I’m feeling very good about the prospects for forests,” Putt said in an interview.
Many Indigenous and civil society groups reject REDD outright if it allows developed countries to avoid real emission reductions by offsetting their emissions.
“We reject false solutions like the carbon market mechanisms of REDD,” said Tom Goldtooth, executive director of the Indigenous Environmental Network.
REDD represents a new set of tradable property rights based on trees and other environmental services, Goldtooth said in an interview.
“If we are going to save the climate, we need to focus on real solutions that assure that forests will be left standing and people’s rights are respected,” he said.
Although Bolivia’s stance will be much commented on, the more than 500 organisations in the Climate Action Network (CAN) once again voted Canada’s radical right-wing government as the most obstructive nation in the world. For its four years in power, Canada’s Stephen Harper government has won the “Colossal Fossil for the year” during climate negotiations for consistent efforts on behalf of its huge tar sands oil sector to block an agreement.
“Canada’s tar sands sector is truly among the global elite, an all- star of greenhouse gas pollution,” a CAN spokesperson said in a statement. “Despite an overall record of climate futility, Canadians should rest assured there’s at least one thing here that Canada is really, really good at.”
CANCUN, 9 December 2010 (IRIN) - Reaching a convergence of views on at least some of the pressing issues being discussed at the UN climate change talks in Cancun, Mexico, before they end on 10 December, is at the top of the wish list of many delegates. Moving towards implementation often appears to be a star too far.
IRIN spoke to four leading climate change negotiating officials from developing countries about their Cancun Christmas wish list: Tosi Mpanu-Mpanu from the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Africa group’s chief negotiator; Hasan Mahmud, the Bangladesh Minister for Environment and Forests; Dessima Williams, chair of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS); and Mama Konate, the main negotiator from Mali.
In the corridors of Moon Palace, the venue where the talks are being held, thousands of delegates walk purposefully from one gathering to another. But the negotiations have been moving at a slower pace, with “extreme options” on many issues – “we need to come to a compromise” position to move forward, said Mpanu-Mpanu.
He would like to see a compromise that could deliver a new climate fund to help developing countries adapt to the impact of extreme natural climatic events, provide technology and build capacity to cope, and grow with fewer greenhouse gas emissions.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has identified Africa as one of the regions most vulnerable to the impact of climate change, not only because of the climate variability it faces but also for its “low adaptive capacity” - the continent is home to most of the world’s Least Developed Countries.
“A Christmas wish out of … the [climate change] talks involves a very emotional issue for us … But we have to put our emotions aside and negotiate,” Mpanu-Mpanu told IRIN.
African countries cannot afford to send large delegations, so they have pooled their technical skills and resources and divided the negotiating tracks – adaptation, mitigation, finance, capacity building and technology transfer – among themselves.
“The division of labour has worked very well for us. Despite our limited resources we have worked very efficiently - we are 53 countries and now speaking with one voice,” Mpanu-Mpanu said.
He expects the Africa group to deliver everyone’s Christmas wish. “We are working on a [negotiating] text which will try to bring everyone together, as I think every other group [at the talks] is as well,” he said.
“We have two tools on our side - international law, in the form of the Kyoto Protocol [of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change] and science – we plan to use these,” Mpanu-Mpanu said.
Hasan Mahmud, a former academic, now Bangladesh’s Minister for Environment and Forests, is less optimistic. “If we don’t come up with some progress here in Cancun, after the failure of Copenhagen, people will dismiss this as another UN picnic.”
Mahmud, along with his counterpart from Australia, has been asked to work with the negotiators to resolve issues around finance, capacity building and technology transfer. He, too, would like to achieve consensus.
The debate on the Finance Track of the negotiations has jammed over the establishment of a new climate change fund. “All countries agree we need a fund, but there are countries who are opposed to the establishment of one in Cancun, while developing countries would like to see something concrete come out of here.”
Progress in the talks on capacity building and technology transfer was also tied to the availability of funds, but one of the sticking points in the transfer of technology – for instance, to produce renewable energy – was intellectual property rights, Mahmud said.
“Many developed countries call for strong patent laws in developing nations to ease technology transfer,” wrote Achala Chandani and Linda Siegele, researchers at the UK-based International Institute for Environment and Development in a brief on the Cancun meeting.
“[However,] some developing countries say that strictly enforced patent rights can lead to high licence costs and obstruct the use and adaptation of technologies for local conditions.”
Mahmud said many countries were suggesting that the debate on intellectual property rights be deferred.
The fiery Dessima Williams, chair of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) would love to see an international mechanism set up to provide financial compensation for the loss and damage caused by a rising sea level, more intense and frequent cyclones, and other slow-onset impacts of climate change.
AOSIS proposed the mechanism in 2008. “We must see this happen here [Cancun], otherwise we will not be able to survive,” she said.
The cost of extreme natural events “can cripple poor nations — in 2008 cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 people in Myanmar and caused an estimated US$4 billion in damages [about 30 percent of the country’s gross domestic product],” wrote Chandani and Siegele.
“Developed countries are uncomfortable with terms like ‘compensation’ when describing the ‘Loss and Damage’ mechanism, because it indicates a legal obligation to take an action,” the international NGO, World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) noted in a statement in Cancun.
WWF said the mechanism should also cover climate change induced displacement, migration and relocation of vulnerable populations.
Many negotiators agreed with Mama Konate, the lead negotiator from Mali, that the twin-track process – of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and providing support to developing countries for mitigation and adaptation – should continue.
“We cannot support calls from some countries to do away with the twin-track process,” said Konate, who also chairs the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice of the UNFCCC.
There is a split between some developed and all developing countries over whether support for adaptation should also be accounted for as emissions are. Developing countries want financial support to be measurable.
Konate said the process to set up a new climate fund should happen in Cancun, and not be left until a later date.
“There is goodwill,” he said optimistically. ”There is much less aggression than compared to Copenhagen.”
Natural Disasters and Household Welfare: Evidence from Vietnam
As natural disasters hit with increasing frequency, especially in coastal areas, it is imperative to better understand how much natural disasters affect economies and their people.
This requires disaggregated measures of natural disasters that can be reliably linked to households, the first challenge this paper tackles. In particular, a methodology is illustrated to create natural disaster and hazard maps from first hand, geo-referenced meteorological data. In a second step, the repeated cross-sectional national living standard measurement surveys (2002, 2004, and 2006) from Vietnam are augmented with the natural disaster measures derived in the first phase, to estimate the welfare effects associated with natural disasters.
The results indicate that short-run losses from natural disasters can be substantial, with riverine floods causing welfare losses of up to 23 percent and hurricanes reducing welfare by up to 52 percent inside cities with a population over 500,000. Households are better able to cope with the short-run effects of droughts, largely due to irrigation. There are also important long-run negative effects, in Vietnam mostly so for droughts, flash floods, and hurricanes. Geographical differentiation in the welfare effects across space and disaster appears partly linked to the functioning of the disaster relief system, which has so far largely eluded households in areas regularly affected by hurricane force winds.
Natural catastrophes and man-made disasters caused economic losses of USD 222 billion in 2010
Preliminary estimates for 2010 from Swiss Re sigma show that natural catastrophes and man-made disasters caused economic losses of USD 222 billion and cost insurers USD 36 billion
According to initial estimates from Swiss Re’s sigma team, worldwide economic losses from natural catastrophes and man-made disasters were USD 222 billion in 2010, more than triple the 2009 figure of USD 63 billion. The cost to the global insurance industry was USD 36 billion, an increase of 34% over the previous year. Approximately 260 000 people died in these events, the highest number since 1976.
In 2010, severe catastrophes claimed significantly more lives than the previous year: nearly 260 000 were killed, compared to 15 000 in 2009. The deadliest event in 2010 was the Haiti earthquake in January, claiming more than 222 000 lives. Approximately 15 000 people died during the summer heat wave in Russia. The summer floods in China and Pakistan also resulted in 6 225 deaths.
High earthquake losses in 2010
Natural catastrophes cost the global insurance industry roughly USD 31 billion in 2010, and man-made disasters triggered additional claims of approximately USD 5 billion. By way of comparison, overall insured losses totalled USD 27 billion in 2009. Despite notably higher than average earthquake losses, overall claims in 2010 were in line with the 20-year average due to unusually modest US hurricane losses. However, the estimate of USD 36 billion is still subject to uncertainty due to, amongst other things, the ongoing European winter storm season.
Eight events triggered losses of over USD 1 billion each
In the first eleven months of 2010, eight events each triggered insurance losses in excess of USD 1 billion. The costliest event in 2010 was the earthquake in Chile in February, which cost the insurance industry USD 8 billion, according to preliminary estimates. The earthquake that struck New Zealand in September cost insurers roughly USD 2.7 billion. Winter storm Xynthia in Western Europe led to insured losses of USD 2.8 billion. Property claims from the BP Deepwater Horizon explosion in the Gulf of Mexico are estimated at USD 1 billion. Given the complexity of the claims, the figure is still subject to substantial uncertainty. The overall insurance loss is higher, as liability losses are not included in the sigma numbers. Floods in France during the month of June caused insured losses just below USD 1 billion.
Natural catastrophes and man-made disasters cost society USD 222 billion in 2010
These devastating events caused economic losses to soar to an estimated USD 222 billion, compared to USD 63 billion in 2009.
Thomas Hess, Chief Economist of Swiss Re, commented: ”The humanitarian catastrophes again showed how important prevention and post disaster management are for protecting the lives and health of people affected by natural hazards. They also revealed large differences in how developed insurance systems are in the affected countries and how important insurance is in coping with the financial consequences of disasters. While most of the costliest events caused by the earthquakes in Chile and New Zealand and the winter storm in Western Europe were covered by insurance, events like the earthquake in Haiti and floods in Asia were barely insured.”
Housing and Urban Development South-South Transfer Award
Development Workshop France received “Housing and Urban Development South-South Transfer Award – Special mention” on the 25th November at the ILO headquarters in Geneva.
The UN-HABITAT, the Building and Social Housing Foundation (BSHF) and the UNDP Special Unit for South-South Cooperation announced the winners of the Housing and Urban Development South-South Transfer Award, a special joint initiative which seeks to recognise housing and urban development practices that have been successfully transferred to other countries in the global South.
The awards have being presented on 25th November 2010 as part of the activities of the Global South-South Development Expo in Geneva, Switzerland, a platform for showcasing successful Southern-grown development solutions to address the Millenium Development Goals. The aim of the award is to identify, provide visibility, and honour those who have sucessfuly shared their projects and approaches internationally, thereby increasing the impact of the initiative.
The winner of the Housing and Urban Development South-South Transfer Award is Un Techo Para mi País (A Roof for my Country), Chile, awarded for mobilising thousands of youth volunteers and transferring its innovative approach to 19 countries across Latin America.
A special mention is also being awarded to Development Workshop’s Preventing Typhoon Damage to Housing programme in Vietnam: The Preventing Typhoon Damage to Housing programme has worked over many years with families and local governments in Vietnam to apply key principles of safe storm and flood resistant construction, both to existing structures and in new housing construction. The principles of disaster risk reduction are now being progressively adopted by other households, NGOs and government agencies both in Vietnam and in other countries, with the approach transferred to Indonesia, Myanmar and Haiti. The transfer has taken place at different levels, from policy to direct community engagement. In each case, strong communication and awareness-raising techniques have been a key part of the process and the principles for disaster-resistant construction and disaster risk reduction have been effectively adapted to each particular context.
Geneva, 25th November 2010
CANCÚN, Mexico, Nov 29, 2010 (IPS/TerraViva) - This year will likely be the warmest ever recorded, with soaring ocean temperatures resulting in a near record die-off of tropical corals, extreme heat and drought in Russia and massive flooding in Pakistan - all signs that climate change has taken hold.
But despite the ever more compelling science regarding the urgency and risks of climate change and growing public support for action, representatives from nearly 200 countries meeting here in Cancún for the next two weeks are unlikely to produce a new binding agreement.
At best, matters such as forestry, climate finance and mitigation commitments will be further developed in the faint hope that the next big meeting in South Africa might produce some kind of deal.
“Carbon emissions continue to climb despite the economic recession and yet I have never seen such low expectations for a COP (Conference of the Parties),” said Richard Somerville, an eminent climate scientist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in California.
“The science is quite compelling regarding the need for urgent action. We don’t have another five years to reach an agreement,” Somerville told TerraViva.
In 2009, Somerville and others co-authored an update on the latest climate science called ‘The Copenhagen Diagnosis’ which concluded that global carbon emissions had to peak and begin to decline before 2020 to have any hope of keeping global warming to less than 2.0 degrees C.
However, the negotiators in Cancún will mostly not be acting on the science but on their national interests as directed by their political leadership, who largely do not understand climate change, he said.
“Developed countries think they can adapt to warmer temperatures. I don’t see how we can keep warming below 2.0 degrees C.,” Somerville said.
Cancún is the 16th meeting of the Conference of Parties of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, an international body formed after the 1992 Rio Earth Summit to deal with the pressing global problem of climate change.
At that time, virtually all countries agreed that emissions of greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide, had to decline. In Kyoto, Japan, industrialised countries promised to reduce their emissions by five percent from the 1990 base year.
However, global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels in 2008 were 40 percent higher than those in 1990 primarily because northern countries like the United States failed to make reductions while emissions by some developing countries like China increased dramatically.
At the last COP in Copenhagen, industrialised countries agreed to keep the rise in global temperatures below 2.0 C. However, even if countries live up to their vague emission reduction pledges in the Copenhagen Accord, humanity is headed for 2.6-5C of warming by 2100 by most analyses.
This range is what most scientists call dangerous or catastrophic climate change, including the loss of coral reefs and other important ecosystems. Moreover, the northern latitudes will heat up much more than the global average - perhaps seven to 14 degrees C in the polar regions - almost certainly guaranteeing the release of vast quantities of methane from the Arctic permafrost.
“Potential methane release from northern permafrost and wetlands under future climate change is of great concern,” warned the World Meteorological Organisation in a bulletin last week. Methane is a greenhouse gas with 25 times more warming potential than carbon dioxide, and now has atmospheric levels 158 percent higher than pre-industrial times.
The Copenhagen Accord has so many loopholes countries can claim they’ve kept their promises while increasing their emissions, said Sivan Kartha, a climate scientist at the Stockholm Environment Institute, an independent international policy research institute.
“It should be exposed for the embarrassment that it is, the loopholes closed off and national reduction commitments increased,” Kartha told IPS.
The strong sense of common purpose at the Rio Earth Summit to meet the dangers of climate change has been lost and negotiations reduced to what seems to be just another trade negotiation, he said.
“In Copenhagen the open, transparent and democratic process that had been key to earlier negotiations vanished. It may be the same in Cancún where small groups of countries do deals behind closed doors,” he said.
Such deals nearly always tilt negotiations to just one perspective. What works for China and the U.S., for example, may be very bad for those countries most impacted by climate change, Kartha says. “The urgency we face should not justify a bad deal for some.”
The exclusion of the interests of small countries and civil society in Copenhagen prompted 35,000 members of the public and global civil society to meet in Bolivia for a parallel ‘people’s summit’ last April. They signed the Cochabamba People’s Accord calling for recognition of a ‘Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth’ and the creation of an International Climate and Environmental Justice Tribunal.
However, those proposals from Cochabamba have been excluded from the formal negotiations here in Cancún, according to La Via Campesina, an international peasant movement with millions of members.
“During the last moments of discussion, the proposals of the People’s Agreement signed in Cochabamba have been left aside,” said Alberto Gomez from La Via Campesina international coordination.
The organisation is mobilising thousands of supporters to march on Cancún to pressure governments to adopt the measures in the Cochabamba People’s Accord. A mass demonstration will be held Dec. 7 in Cancún and many other locations around the world. In Cancún, an estimated 6,000 heavily armed Mexican military and police are already on hand to meet them.
“We do not agree with false solutions such as the carbon market because, far from reducing greenhouse gases, it will sooner or later create a speculative system leading the world into another global financial crisis,” Gomez said in a statement.
“La Via Campesina mobilises to denounce the irresponsibility of most of the governments who choose to support capital rather than the interest of their nation and of humanity as a whole,” he said.
BANGLADESH: Community involvement key to disaster preparedness
DHAKA, 18 November 2010 (IRIN) - Working in one of the most disaster-prone countries in the world, Bangladeshi aid groups have learned that well-intentioned disaster relief programmes without community participation do little to protect those communities in the long run.
“Communities have been living with disasters for much longer than we have been talking about disaster risk reduction,” said Dilruba Haider, a director of NGO Bangladesh Disaster Preparedness Centre (BDPC). [ http://www.bdpc.org.bd/ ]
“Unless you involve communities and give them the feeling that this is their project, as soon as you withdraw, the whole thing collapses.”
A good example of community involvement was when the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation contracted out the construction of four cyclone shelters in Bagerhat District in the far southwest of the country - and BDPC engaged communities to select the sites and oversee the work.
These shelters contrast with much of the prior work nationwide, Haider said.
“In the coastal belt we have more than 2,000 cyclone shelters, many of which have already become shabby and unusable. Government and donors built them and then they go out of the area and the community just sees a building,” she said.
Changing weather patterns, widespread poverty and a location in the world’s largest delta puts the country at risk of multiple perennial disasters.
The southern coastal areas are particularly vulnerable to the effects of increasingly volatile weather, said Reuben Marandy, World Vision’s manager of humanitarian and emergency affairs.
“Usually from June to August we have monsoon season, but the rainfall has decreased significantly, and so rice crops are not being planted; the season is running out and a food shortage may happen,” he said.
Getting villages prepared to move their families and preserve food means they have a better chance of being able to adapt when disasters strike, he added.
But this is not always easy.
With about 35 percent of the population in Bangladesh’s six largest cities living in slums, according to UN Development Programme, interesting the country’s poorest in disaster preparedness means addressing their most basic needs.
“Normal health, livelihoods, education - those are their priorities. In rural communities, it’s the same. Most of them prioritize their livelihoods,” said Michiel Slotema, NGO Plan International’s disaster risk reduction adviser.
Raised village
For Munjela Bewa, a 28-year-old widow and mother of two, finding a place to live that would not flood was a priority. Gono Gobeshona, a local NGO, [ http://www.gonogobeshona.org/ ] involved her community to create a solution.
“The organization first shared what they wanted to do and then asked us what our problems were,” Bewa said.
She now lives in Char Kaijuri, a raised village in the northwestern district of Sirajganj.
Located on the River Jamuna, Sirajganj is one of the country’s most flood-prone areas. With that in mind, Gono Gobeshona, with support from Action Aid, worked with local people to create a “raised cluster village” built on land above the area that usually floods.
Most residents moved to Char Kaijuri to settle on government-owned land after their homes were destroyed in surrounding villages due to river erosion.
Factbox -Findings, errors by UN panel of climate scientists
Nov 16 (Reuters) - Following is an overview of findings, and errors, by the U.N. panel of climate scientists whose reports are the main guide for governments meeting in Mexico later this month to seek ways to slow global warming.
Almost 200 nations will meet in Cancun, Mexico, from Nov. 29 to Dec. 10 for annual talks, hoping to agree a package of measures including a green fund to help manage aid to poor nations.
Findings by the U.N.‘s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its latest report from 2007:
* OBSERVED CHANGES - “Warming of the climate system is unequivocal”.
* CAUSES OF CHANGE - “Most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in ... greenhouse gas concentrations” from human activities. (“Very likely” means at least 90 percent)
Annual greenhouse gas emissions from human activities have risen by 70 percent since 1970. Concentrations of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, far exceed the natural range over the last 650,000 years.
* PROJECTED CLIMATE CHANGES - Temperatures are likely to rise by between 1.1 and 6.4 degrees Celsius (2.0 and 11.5 Fahrenheit) and sea levels by between 18 cm and 59 cm (7 inches and 23 inches) this century, without accounting for risks of an accelerated thaw of Greenland and Antarctica.
Africa, the Arctic, small islands and Asian mega-deltas are likely to be especially affected by climate change. Sea level rise “would continue for centuries” because of the momentum of warming even if greenhouse gas levels are stabilised.
“Warming could lead to some impacts that are abrupt or irreversible”. About 20-30 percent of species will be at increasing risk of extinction if future temperature rises exceed 1.5 to 2.5 degrees Celsius.
* SOLUTIONS/COSTS - Governments have a wide range of tools—higher taxes on emissions, regulations, tradeable permits and research. An effective carbon price could help cuts.
Emissions of greenhouse gases would have to peak by 2015 to limit global temperature rises to 2.0 to 2.4 degrees Celsius (3.6-4.3F) over pre-industrial times, the strictest goal assessed.
The costs of fighting warming will range from less than 0.12 percent of global gross domestic product (GDP) per year for the most stringent scenarios until 2030 to less than 0.06 percent for a less tough goal. In the most costly case, that means a cumulative loss of GDP by 2030 of less than 3 percent.
ERRORS
In July 2010, a review by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency said the IPCC:
—exaggerated the rate of melt of Himalayan glaciers by saying they could all vanish by 2035.
—wrongly said that 55 percent of the Netherlands is below sea level. The real figure is 26 percent.
—wrongly projected that between 75 million and 250 million people in Africa are at risk of stress on water supplies by 2020 due to climate change. The original study on which the forecast was based had estimated 90 to 220 million people.
The Agency concluded that it “found no errors that would undermine the main conclusions in the 2007 report”.
EU says fulfils climate aid pledge, but is it new?
* EU report says on track to meet climate finance promise
* Critics suspect money may be recycled aid pledges
BRUSSELS, Nov 15 (Reuters) - European governments have fulfilled a promise to deliver 2.2 billion euros ($3 billion) to help poor countries tackle climate change, EU reports show, but critics say the money might have come from rebranding existing aid pledges.
At last year’s Copenhagen climate summit, rich countries pledged $30 billion of “fast start finance” to help poorer countries adapt to climate change and reduce their greenhouse gas emissions during 2010-2012.
The move was largely designed to prove to poor countries that promises of climate aid were more than just rhetoric, so proof of delivery is seen as key for progress in the next round of climate talks in Cancun, Mexico, starting on Nov. 29.
“The EU member states and the European Commission have confirmed 2.2 billion euros of fast-start finance in 2010, thereby remaining on track to meet its overall commitment of 7.2 billion across the 2010-12 fast start period,” says a draft EU report seen by Reuters.
The projects include some that seek to help poor countries adapt to changing weather patterns, such as a German grant of 300,000 euros to help Mozambique build a flood warning system.
The Czech Republic also granted 400,000 euros to Ethiopia for projects to revitalise wells, increase water supplies and halt the erosion of soils.
Other projects focus on mitigating greenhouse gas emissions, such as a 900,000 euro grant from Germany to Brazil to help recycle refrigerators in a way that does not release powerful planet-warming gases.
Others are more abstract, such as a 50,000 euro grant from Britain “to increase African voice and influence, through high-profile African figures, for a new international climate change deal”.
Some development groups suspect, however, that EU countries might simply be recycling existing aid pledges already made under the U.N.‘s Millennium Development Goals.
“Europe has a chance to rebuild trust with poor countries at Cancun, but the draft EU report on short-term climate finance suggests they are attempting a cover-up,” said Elise Ford, head of Oxfam’s EU policy office in Brussels.
“Poor countries deserve to know whether EU cash for climate action is really new and fresh or whether it is just being repackaged from past aid promises,” she added.
Four of the EU’s 27 member countries have not delivered on their promises, the EU draft report says, without naming them.
But that would not be surprising, given that Europe is wrestling with its worst economic crisis in 80 years, and many countries have to make deep budget cuts at home
Thailand: Mixed results for local disaster preparedness
MUANG BANG, 16 November 2010 (IRIN) - Heavy rain flooded most of Thailand this past month, affected nine million people in 51 of the country’s 75 provinces, and underscored the country’s need for better community disaster preparedness, government officials say.
The high number of deaths by drowning and electrocution - 206 as of mid-November - surprised the authorities, said Montri Chanachaiviboonwat, director of the national Bureau of Disaster Management Department. During 32 days of storms, 146 people died, while 11 days of heavy rain and mudslides in the south killed another 60.
“We worry that the safety culture of the people is quite low,” said Montri. “Some went to pray and had to swim through the water. Others went fishing.”
Mr Early Warning - Thailand’s village-level disaster preparedness programme - trains volunteers (both men and women) to monitor and report water levels in remote parts of the country to fellow villagers and then up the chain of command to national authorities.
This “bottom up” strategy has proven effective, as long as the message is clear and the rains do not come too quickly, Montri said.
“Community leaders play a big role in early warning, but the rainfall intensity was very high - about one month of normal rainfall came in two or three days,” he told IRIN. “It was much more than people could [handle with the early warning system].”
Community leaders are being forced to play a bigger role in preparedness in part also because of cuts in the budget for disaster prevention efforts.
Checking the rain gauge
Petchaboon, a province in central Thailand, experienced its worst flooding in 100 years this rainy season and 100,000 people were affected, but no one died.
“Much of this has to do with preparedness,” said Narong Kornsombut, head of prevention and mitigation for Petchaboon Province.
Since the first year of the programme in 2004, the province has trained 788 Mr Early Warnings, including Nong Lak Cherbumee, 44, of Muang Bang, a mountain village of 1,100 people.
As wife of the village administrator and mother of two, serving as flood monitor is just one of her many duties. Nevertheless, Nong Lak - one of the programme’s first trainees - says she has checked the local rain gauge every day of the rainy season for six years, has the weather log to prove it, and is prepared to raise the alarm if rain reaches dangerous levels.
Budget cuts
The government will pay US$670 to the families of each person killed in floods this year, and an additional $335 if a head of household dies.
However, the national Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation’s 2010 budget has been cut more than 25 percent on its 2009 level, and equates to just $1.25 per capita.
“This is too low for prevention and mitigation,” Montri said, adding that more money and emphasis must be placed on preparing people for disasters.
“We need to have stronger…communication between the community and the authorities.”
World Bank-UN Report Charts Path to Prevent Death and Destruction from Natural Hazards
* Losses may triple to $185 billion a year-study
* U.N., World Bank urge focus on preventing disasters
OSLO, Nov 11 (Reuters) - Global losses from natural disasters could triple to $185 billion a year by 2100, excluding the impact of climate change, according to a report, which calls for a shift in focus from relief work to preventative measures.
The joint report by the United Nations and the World Bank, published on Thursday, said the number of people at risk of storms or earthquakes in large cities could double to 1.5 billion by 2050. Simple preventative measures could curb losses from natural disasters, it said, citing Bangladesh’s success in building shelters to protect against cyclones.
The study of natural hazards including earthquakes, heatwaves and floods called for investment in everything from improving weather forecasts, to re-painting steel bridges to avoid rust, and keeping storm drains clear of debris.
“Preventing deaths and destruction from disasters pays, if done right,” according to the 250-page report by 70 experts entitled “Natural Hazards, UnNatural Disasters”.
“Annual global losses from natural disasters could triple to $185 billion by the end of this century, even without calculating the impact of climate change,” it said.
“Losses will triple primarily because you have economic growth and ... more people and property located in richer areas. As people get richer they have more to lose,” lead author Apurva Sanghi told a telephone news conference.
Damage from more powerful cyclones likely to be caused by global warming could add $28-$68 billion to the annual bill, it said. It did not give a total for possible costs linked to climate change, such as desertification or rising sea levels.
It said about 3.3 million people had died from natural hazards in the past 40 years, or 82,500 a year, with most in poor nations.
RENT CAPS A HAZARD
The report urged countries from the United States to India to review caps on building rentals. Rent controls in Mumbai meant “property owners have neglected maintenance for decades, so buildings crumble in heavy rains,” it said.
It urged better protection of key infrastructure, such as hospitals. In some cases, buildings can have dual money-saving roles—such as schools in Bangladesh that act as cyclone shelters or roadways in Malaysia that act as drains, it said.
And it urged spending on “environmental buffers”, such as mangroves that can protect coastlines against storms or tsunamis. Forests can help prevent mudslides and mute the effect of floods, it said.
World Bank Group President Robert Zoellick said the report made a “compelling case” showing how nations can curb their vulnerability to natural hazards and free up resources for economic development.
“The news is not all gloomy. Bangladesh has been extremely successful in reducing the number of deaths from cyclones” partly by building shelters in recent decades, Sanghi said.
Survey puts climate change atop nation’s most pressing concerns
VietNamNet Bridge – Viet Nam is one of only two countries or territories globally where climate change is the people’s top concern, according to a survey by HSBC.
The results of HSBC’s fourth annual Climate Confidence Monitor revealed that climate change, economic stability and terrorism ranked together as the top three concerns globally. In Hong Kong and Viet Nam, people surveyed said climate change was their number one concern.
This is the first time that Viet Nam took part in the survey. One in three Vietnamese polled said they were aware of climate change and its effect on their daily life and 43 per cent thought it was among the biggest issues that they were concerned about.
Vietnamese respondents demonstrated the strongest personal commitment globally to reducing climate impacts. Implementing energy-saving home improvements (31 per cent), reducing home heating and air-conditioning (29 per cent) and recycling household waste (17 per cent) were the top three ways that people here could fight climate change, similar to global results.
Large scale government funded initiatives are highly expected with 53 per cent of the surveyed participants believing they would be more effective in reducing the impacts.
Vietnamese people also showed good will by preferring to buy environment friendly products rather than save money. Climate was the primary driver for Vietnamese families to take low-carbon actions such as paying a higher price for more energy efficient products, recycling household waste and eating less meat. Forty three per cent said they would pay a higher price for energy efficient products, higher than the global average of 40 per cent and countries such as the USA (26 per cent) and Japan (23 per cent).
Globally, the emerging economies provided a welcome note of optimism, leading the way in terms of concern, personal commitment and the belief that climate change can be stopped in a survey that reflects a largely gloomy picture of a worried, pessimistic public. Two thirds (64 per cent) of respondents in China claimed to be making a significant effort to help reduce climate change, compared to 23 per cent in the UK, 20 per cent in the USA and 11 per cent in Japan. One in three people in Viet Nam, India and China believed climate change could be halted, compared to just one in twenty in France and the UK.
People’s opinions surrounding the business opportunities and economic prospects presented by climate change were encouraging. Over half of respondents in Brazil, India and Malaysia strongly agreed their countries would prosper and new jobs would be created by responding to climate change. The UK and the US were slightly less optimistic, but still a third of people thought economic opportunities and new jobs could be created.
This sentiment was accompanied by a strong call for business to invest in addressing climate change, with almost three-quarters of people in France (73 per cent) and more than two thirds in Germany (67 per cent) expressing the view that greater business investment is needed in this area. NGOs and individuals were seen as central to the effort, backed up by effective government intervention (such as carbon taxes and emissions trading schemes).
Lesson from experience of Disaster Shelter or Reconstruction of Dwellings
What has been the most important lesson you have learned from your own experience of Disaster Shelter or Reconstruction of Dwellings ?
After a conference about “Shelter after disaster”, Ian Davis asked 17 experimented friends to present their opinion in less than 150 words.
This is from John Norton / DWF President
The issue can be seen in the workshop title: ‘Shelter after Disaster’.
We should address safer shelter before the disaster and experience shows that it can be done. We need to do much more where we know what the risks are. We have to promote action to address risks so that the hazard does not become a disaster. Disasters create a short term environment encouraging action about risk reduction, but even then conflicting emergency priorities dampen enthusiasm for longer term safety and the investment required.
Our DW experience is that once shown how safety can be integrated into existing and new non engineered buildings families are more than ready to invest their time, energy and money in making their home safer and better for their future. We have to back and encourage this.
This is not an issue of building regulations, but of awareness raising on the potential for safety and much lower costs than recovery.
CHAU DOC, 28 October 2010 (IRIN) - Vann Sopheap, an ethnic Cambodian who lives in this small border town in Vietnam, prefers the outdoors to the bathroom. “It smells much nicer outside,” he says. “The toilets are too dirty.”
Villagers such as Vann are often reluctant to use latrines, a behaviour that contributes to the prevalence of diarrhoeal diseases in Vietnam, which can sometimes become deadly, especially for children under-five.
According to the UN, some 10 million people in Vietnam continue to practise open defecation.
Each year more than 20,000 people die in the country because of a lack of clean water, poor sanitation and hygiene, the World Health Organization (WHO) reports.
Sanitation lags behind other MDGs
In the past two decades, speedy economic growth and efficient government policies have led to “considerable gains” in child health, Lotta Sylwander, the country representative for the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), recently told government officials and international donors in the capital, Hanoi.
In 2006, the latest year for which data is available, just over half of the rural population had access to “improved” sanitation facilities, as did 88 percent of the urban population, according to UNICEF.
Twenty million children, or 59 percent of all children in Vietnam, do not have access to proper sanitation. About 73 percent of schools have latrines, but fewer than half meet national standards. A lack of access to clean sanitation and hygiene causes about half of all communicable diseases in the country.
“Poverty can be one reason for this, but education and culture play very important roles as well,” Thowai Zai, head of the UNICEF water and sanitation programme, told IRIN.
Many people living in rural and remote mountainous areas consider open defecation to be cleaner, he said. In poor areas, especially in northern mountainous regions and the central highlands, people have much scarcer access to toilets, Zai added.
Others defecate in rivers and ponds, the same water sources they use for cooking, cleaning and bathing.
Some experts argue that NGOs need to more effectively educate villagers. “Villagers know it’s no good to poop into the water,” Jack Sim, founder of the World Toilet Organisation, told IRIN from Singapore.
“The only thing needed is to reinforce that message, because old habits take time to change,” he added.
Community approach
Merely providing toilets does not guarantee local people will use them, experts say.
To encourage more efficient use of latrines and good hygiene, in 2009 the Ministry of Health introduced a programme called community-led total sanitation (CLTS), in several poor provinces throughout the country, such as Dien Bien, Lao Cai, Kon Tum, Ninh Thuan, and An Giang.
Rather than NGOs subsidizing the construction of individual toilets for each household, the project attempts to mobilize communities to analyze their own sanitation problems and agree on their own solutions.
UNICEF hopes the villages can become “open-defecation-free”.
Earlier this year, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) approved a US$45 million loan for a large water supply and sanitation project in six central Vietnamese provinces.
The loan will be used to improve toilets in schools, hospitals and homes. About 350,000 people will reap the benefits, according to the ADB, which hopes the project will be completed by 2016.
Analysis: Are humanitarians learning the lessons from Haiti?
LONDON, 28 October 2010 (IRIN) - Listen to locals, tap into existing capacity, coordinate needs assessments, find strong leaders and provide transitional shelter - not just tents. These are some of the lessons to have emerged from the 2007 tsunami evaluation, numerous earthquake responses and the latest Haiti real-time evaluation, begging the question: when will the humanitarian community start applying these lessons learned. [ http://www.alnap.org/resource/5536.aspx;http://www.urd.org/spip.php?article458;http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportID=87825 ]
“There is still a tendency not only to reinvent the wheel, but also to turn it the wrong way,” notes the Haiti Real Time Evaluation (RTE), written in August 2010 but just published in October. What worked
Some things did go right in Haiti, say both the RTE and Sir John Holmes, former under-secretary general for humanitarian response at the UN, and currently director of the Ditchley Foundation. [ http://www.ditchley.co.uk/ ]
At a Haiti applying lessons-learned forum hosted by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) on 26 October, Holmes outlined some relative successes. Search and rescue teams worked efficiently; medical care, with a major contribution from Médecins Sans Frontières, was strong, as were the World Health Organization’s disease control efforts; water distributions were prioritized, with thousands of cubic litres distributed by May 2010; organization of food assistance, after initial hiccups, meant food aid reached 3.5 million people; and emergency education efforts were good. Further, some 57 percent of the US$1.5 billion revised humanitarian flash appeal was funded.
It is easy to criticize, said Holmes and important to remember the extreme challenges such large-scale crises pose. “There is a glib narrative that the humanitarian community doesn’t apply the lessons it learns, but it is important to remember there are some things that are just hard to get right,” he said.
Process-wise, few agencies informed local communities of what they were doing or why they were there; and while they coordinated closely at first with what was left of the national authorities, this coordination dwindled over time, according to the RTE.
Most coordination meetings for each sector, or “cluster”, took place in English, marginalizing locals who spoke only French or Creole; and many national staff were barred due to too-tight security measures, says the RTE.
Perhaps most frustrating, after the stress laid on improving leadership in the humanitarian sector over recent years, was the poor leadership exhibited at the top of the UN system, but also among cluster heads. It took several weeks for the UN to decide whether to appoint a humanitarian and recovery head or to merge it all under one leader; and to appoint the right person for the post.
The UN humanitarian country team was only convened a full three weeks after the disaster hit, notes the RTE.
“Mega-disaster” constraints
However, observers must not overlook the major challenges unique to the Haiti context, pointed out all three speakers at the ODI forum. The scale of destruction made Haiti a “mega-disaster” said Linda Poteat, director of disaster response at US NGO network Interaction, with government officials killed, rubble-strewn streets and few suitable buildings to hold meetings in. Thirteen out of 16 ministries were destroyed.
This was a disaster in which the responders were also the victims, she pointed out - “National staff had lost their homes and lost family members - they had to make sure they were okay while being called on to work 16-hour days; many skilled ministry staff were dead - including the chief, government-NGO liaison.”
Rather than being put to work, some staff should have been sent away immediately, given the levels of trauma they were experiencing, Holmes told IRIN.
The urban locus of the Haiti disaster posed a huge challenge to the humanitarian community, which is still geared up primarily for rural response, and is only now beginning to address urbanization challenges, said Ross Mountain, director of independent group, Development Assistance Research Associates (DARA). [ http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=90825 ]
“You can’t dig a latrine in the middle of a city,” said Poteat. “Camps are hard to secure in urban spaces. Populations kept on moving around - from camps to villages and back, so it was hard to keep track of them.”
Further, widespread media attention brought hundreds of small NGOs to Haiti to try to help out, many with little emergency experience; in addition to the hundreds of reporters seeking instant stories and a strong US military presence, said Holmes. “There were even more actors there than usual… This can further hamper coordination efforts… We didn’t get leadership quite right, but it was not as wrong as some think,” he said.
Amid this chaos, and amid reports that the already-weak government was struggling to respond amid heavy staff losses, many aid agencies bypassed local structures, said Holmes. “Yes, we should involve local actors more, but at the same time - it is hard to get that right,” he said.
Improving leadership
Agencies need to be more “ruthless” when it comes to appointing the right people to leadership roles, said Holmes. “It doesn’t always matter if someone has the right local knowledge - if they are not used to large-scale disaster response, then they must be replaced,” he told IRIN.
Mountain agrees humanitarian leaders need to be tougher. “You have to sometimes be unpopular and take risks - you cannot be guaranteed success,” he told IRIN. “There is no robust-enough system in the UN to address this dimension of leadership.”
Appointing and training the right leaders has been at the forefront of humanitarian reform over the past few years, but the wide-scale impact is yet to be felt, implies the RTE. Stronger surge capacity rosters - which NGOs and UN agencies are getting better at setting up in advance - should be developed at a wider scale, said Mountain.
On the coordination front, clusters need to shift from simply sharing information, to setting strategy, said Poteat. This has long-time been a recommendation in humanitarian response, yet is still not practised across the board. One sector to do this well was shelter, she said.
And while coordinating with military actors may be difficult for humanitarians, they have to face up to the challenge, said Holmes. In Haiti, the US military was looking for a strong humanitarian-led coordination structure, yet this was slow to emerge. “We need more policies and scenario-planning done ahead of time when it comes to CIMIC [civil-military-coordination],” he told aid workers at the ODI.
Recommendations
The RTE recommends aid agencies hone their approach to large-scale natural disasters in urban settings. “We will see more of these disasters - the Haitis, the Pakistans, linked to climate change - in the future,” said Mountain, “and we do not have the tools we need to deal with them. This is a warning that we need to prepare,” he said.
Other recommendations include vastly improving protection and water and sanitation responses in crises; to use new technology more effectively - for instance using SMS applications to distribute cash, or satellite imagery in needs-assessments. As Mountain told IRIN: “Everyone talks about satellite imagery being available to map needs, but where is it? Whenever I’m on the ground, I can’t access it.”
Holmes posed the question that in scenarios where thousands of aid agencies are turning up, “maybe the NGO community needs to put more effort into certification [of quality players] and even amalgamation in some cases.”
And in terms of approach, agencies should finally try to grasp the lesson that taking an inclusive, participatory approach does not necessarily slow down response, but can indeed make it quicker, said the RTE.
These lessons are not necessarily new - the challenge is how to apply them. Holmes suggested an independently-run follow-up matrix outlining actions aid agencies must adopt in the next disaster, so they can be held to account. Poteat suggests more future-oriented scenario planning - for instance for a large-scale megalopolis-centred disaster. “Rather than always looking backwards, we need to prepare for the future,” she said.
Following the discussion, UN humanitarian sector heads and aid agency representatives in Geneva met in Geneva to discuss how to turn the evaluation’s findings into actions.
Big economies of the future most at risk from climate change
Big economies of the future - Bangladesh, India, Philippines, Vietnam and Pakistan - most at risk from climate change
A new global ranking, calculating the vulnerability of 170 countries to the impacts of climate change over the next 30 years, identifies some of the world’s largest and fastest-growing economies, including India, as facing the greatest risks to their populations, ecosystems and business environments.
The new Climate Change Vulnerability Index (CCVI), released by global risks advisory firm Maplecroft, enables organisations to identify areas of risk within their operations, supply chains and investments. It evaluates 42 social, economic and environmental factors to assess national vulnerabilities across three core areas. These include: exposure to climate-related natural disasters and sea-level rise; human sensitivity, in terms of population patterns, development, natural resources, agricultural dependency and conflicts; thirdly, the index assesses future vulnerability by considering the adaptive capacity of a country’s government and infrastructure to combat climate change.
The index rates 16 countries as ‘extreme risk,’ including nations that represent new Asian economic power and possess significant forecasted growth. Bangladesh (1), India (2), Philippines (6), Vietnam (13) and Pakistan (16) all feature in the highest risk category and are of particular importance as they are major contributors to the ongoing global economic recovery and are vital to the future expansion of Western businesses in particular.
“These countries are attracting high levels of foreign investment from many multinational organisations,” said Principal Environmental Analyst at Maplecroft, Dr Matthew Bunce. “However, over the next 30 years their vulnerability to climate change will rise due to increases in air temperature, precipitation and humidity. This means organisations with operations or assets in these countries will become more exposed to associated risks, such as climate-related natural disasters, resource security and conflict. Understanding climate vulnerability will help companies make their investments more resilient to unexpected change.”
Other countries featuring in the ‘extreme risk’ category include: Madagascar (3), Nepal (4), Mozambique (5), Haiti (7), Afghanistan (8), Zimbabwe (9), Myanmar (10), Ethiopia (11), Cambodia (12), Thailand (14) and Malawi (15). According to Maplecroft, the countries with the most risk are characterised by high levels of poverty, dense populations, exposure to climate-related events; and their reliance on flood and drought prone agricultural land. Africa features strongly in this group, with the continent home to 12 out of the 25 countries most at risk.
Throughout 2010, changes in weather patterns have resulted in a series of devastating natural disasters, especially in South Asia, where heavy floods in Pakistan affected more than 20 million people (over 10% of the total population) and killed more than 1,700 people. “There is growing evidence climate change is increasing the intensity and frequency of climatic events,” said Environmental Analyst at Maplecroft, Dr Anna Moss. “Very minor changes to temperature can have major impacts on the human environment, including changes to water availability and crop productivity, the loss of land due to sea level rise and the spread of disease.”
Maplecroft rates Bangladesh as the country most at risk due to extreme levels of poverty and a high dependency on agriculture, whilst its government has the lowest capacity of all countries to adapt to predicted changes in the climate. In addition, Bangladesh has a high risk of drought and the highest risk of flooding. This is illustrated during October 2010, when 500,000 people were driven from their homes by flood waters created by storms. However, despite the country’s plethora of problems, the Bangladesh economy grew 88% between 2000 and 2008 and is forecast to by the IMF to grow 5.4% over 2010 and up to 6.2% over the next five years.
India, ranked 2nd, is already one of the world’s power brokers, but climate vulnerability could still adversely affect the country’s appeal as a destination for foreign investment in coming decades. Vulnerability to climate-related events was seen in the build up to the Commonwealth Games, where heavy rains affected the progress of construction of the stadium and athletes’ village. Almost the whole of India has a high or extreme degree of sensitivity to climate change, due to acute population pressure and a consequential strain on natural resources. This is compounded by a high degree of poverty, poor general health and the agricultural dependency of much of the populace.
There are 11 countries considered ‘low risk’ in the index, with Norway (170), Finland (169), Iceland (168), Ireland (167), Sweden (166) and Denmark (165) performing the best. However, Russia (117), USA (129), Germany (131), France (133) and the UK (138) are all rated as ‘medium risk’ countries, whilst China (49), Brazil (81) and Japan (86) feature in the ‘high risk’ category.
The Climate Change Vulnerability Index is the central component of Maplecroft’s Climate Change Risk Atlas 2011, which also evaluates the risks to business relating to emissions, unsustainable energy use, regulation and climate change vulnerability. The index is also visually represented in an interactive, GIS derived “hotspots” sub-national map, which analyses climate change vulnerability risks down to a 25km² scale worldwide.
EU Commission proposes to improve European disaster response
Summary: 26 October 2010, Brussels - A step towards faster and more efficient EU response to disasters was made today, as the European Commission presented proposals to reinforce the Union’s capacity to act on civil protection and humanitarian assistance. The aim is to improve the disaster response of the European Union, both within and outside of its borders.
Kristalina Georgieva, European Commissioner for International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response, said: “The world is changing and the number of disasters worldwide has risen fivefold since 1975. From the earthquake in Haiti to the industrial spill in Hungary we have seen that a combined European response can be more effective - both on the field, and in terms of cost.In a situation where every hour counts the European Union needs a system that guarantees the availability of key assets for immediate deployment. We can not afford to wait for the next mega disaster before we take action.”
The new strategy aims to develop scenarios for the main disaster risks and to identify the assets needed if these risks materialise; in addition, a map will be drawn of Member States’ assets that are currently available for EU response, and national authorities will be requested to voluntarily put core equipment on standby, available for rapid European assistance if needed.
To achieve this, the Commission outlines a twin-track approach: first, it proposes that a European Emergency Response Capacity is set up, based on Member States’ expertise and assets; and second, a European Emergency Response Centre will be the new platform for more effective EU coordination whenever disasters strike. This centre, which will merge the humanitarian aid (ECHO) and civil protection (MIC) crisis rooms, will collect real-time information on disasters, monitor hazards, alert member states, and coordinate the EU’s disaster response actions.
Improved EU capacity in this area has multiple benefits - most importantly, saving lives and helping recovery. In addition, today’s proposals aim to reinforce the Union’s input in the overall coordination in post-disaster situations, carried out by the United Nations.The strategy also identifies the need for increased visibility of the work done by the EU in its disaster response operations. Measures are proposed including the use of EU symbols and ensuring that the Commission’s humanitarian partners give adequate visibility to EU-funded assistance.
The disaster response strategy is based on making the most effective use of existing instruments rather than establishing new overarching structures. [These proposals will be complemented later on by the Commission’s proposal for an Internal Security Strategy, proposals on the role of the EEAS in disaster response and also the implementing arrangements for the Solidarity Clause which was introduced in the Lisbon Treaty.]
The European Union has had two main instruments to provide a first response to disasters - humanitarian assistance and civil protection. Both have been placed on new legal basis by the Treaty of Lisbon. Legislative proposals will be made in 2011 to implement the key proposals that are made in the Communication.
