The links between severe weather and humanitarian crisis
Droughts, Floods and Food – Paul Krugman, NYT
Climate change to hit millions across Asia – The Peninsula
Within the past year severe weather has been, at least to a large degree, responsible for rising food prices, civil unrest, and population displacement.
Unfortunately, climate change – especially unmitigated climate change – is likely to increase the frequency and intensity of recent events like the flooding in Australia and Pakistan, fires in Russia, and drought in Brazil.
The Asian Development Bank in a new (draft) report, finds Asia will be the region most affected by climate change, asserting that a failure to take immediate action and plan for migration will result in “humanitarian crises.”
‘Asia and the Pacific is particularly vulnerable because of its high degree of exposure to environmental risks and high population density. As a result, it could experience population displacements of unprecedented scale in the next decades,’ said the report, primarily targeted at regional policymakers
Unsurprisingly, such events have high costs:
Summer floods and landslides in China caused an estimated $18bn in damage, while floods in Pakistan cost $9.5bn, CRED’s [the Belgium-based Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters] annual study showed. Not to mention the catastrophic human cost.
A “taste” of what is to come was exemplified when, in 2010, millions across Sri Lanka and the Philippines were displaced by severe weather. In the future, while many displaced people will not be permanently so, many others, the report projects, will not be able to return home. And as we’ve discussed before, the developed world does not have a good track record in providing the necessary aid.
Paul Krugman writes about another example of what’s to come.
This year, rising food prices have, at the very least, contributed to civil unrest in Egypt and Tunisia. Admittedly, other weather patterns have affected the cost of foodstuffs in the past – La Niña was associated with food crises in 2007-8, but, as Krugman writes:
But that’s not the whole story. Don’t let the snow fool you: globally, 2010 was tied with 2005 for warmest year on record, even though we were at a solar minimum and La Niña was a cooling factor in the second half of the year. Temperature records were set not just in Russia but in no fewer than 19 countries, covering a fifth of the world’s land area. And both droughts and floods are natural consequences of a warming world: droughts because it’s hotter, floods because warm oceans release more water vapor.
As always, you can’t attribute any one weather event to greenhouse gases. But the pattern we’re seeing, with extreme highs and extreme weather in general becoming much more common, is just what you’d expect from climate change.
One can only speculate the implications that this will have on U.S. national security given such serious disruptions to food supply and communities-particularly those surviving on less than $2 a day. But if history is any indication, our national security is best served by taking action on climate change now and reducing greenhouse gas emissions in an effort to limit economic disruptions around the world.
ASP, in September 2010, published “Climate Change and Immigration: Warnings for America’s Southern Border” to look at possible outcomes for U.S./Latin American relations, another region projected to be significantly affected.
