Humanitarians see surge in climate-related disasters globally

The number of climate-related disasters around the world is growing rapidly, humanitarians have warned and urged more efforts to prepare and build resilience to looming changes on a warming planet.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC), the globe's surface has already warmed one degree Celsius, enough to lift oceans and unleash a crescendo of deadly storms, floods and droughts, and is on track toward an unlivable three-degree or four-degree Celsius rise.

The United Nations has warned that drastic action is needed to prevent earth from hurtling towards an unbearable rise in temperature. Climate shocks are already driving displacement, causing many to go hungry, and sparking or exacerbating conflicts around the globe.

Already, according to the World Food Programme, climate shocks are significant drivers of displacement, forcing 22.5 million people to leave their homes each year. If the earth warms just two degrees, 189 million more people will become food insecure.

DISASTER

WFP head of the climate and disaster risk reduction division Gernot Laganda, decried the "increasingly distractive interplay between conflict and climate disasters."

He pointed out that the world's 10 most conflict-affected countries, including Syria, Yemen and the Democratic Republic of Congo, are also impacted by extreme weather events, creating a so-called "pressure-cooker" effect.

Moreover, according to Elhadj As Sy, Secretary-General of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, humanitarians have seen a dramatic increase in climate and weather-related crises.

“With climate change, the shocks and hazards are multiplying," he said, adding that such shocks were getting more frequent and more severe.

While acknowledging that climate-related shocks would likely keep climbing, Sy emphasised that it was not inevitable that such shocks and hazards should "become a disaster."

"In the 1970s, we used to be dealing with 80 to 100 severe weather-related shocks and hazards" each year, he said, contrasting that to last year, when the number was around 400 – "four times more."

"We need to be better prepared with early warning and with early alert," he said, and stressed the importance of continuously having volunteers on the ground in affected communities to help them to adapt to climate change."