Climate change could overwhelm aid programs
Updated
By 2015, more than 375 million people on average per year are likely to be affected by climate-related disasters.
That's according to a new report to be released by Oxfam Great Britain in the Thai capital Bangkok later today. Oxfam says - in just six years time - the unprecedented level of need for humanitarian assistance could overwhelm the world's current humanitarian capacity.
Presenter: Joanna McCarthy
Speaker: Bert Maerten, Global Climate Change Lead, Oxfam International
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JOANNA McCARTHY: Bert, good morning. You are predicting a very rapid deterioration in a very, very short amount of time. Are you concerned this may be seen as a little alarmist?
BERT MAERTEN: Well, these predictions are based on a projection of the current level of people affected by climate change and natural disasters. Today 250 million people each year are already affected by natural disasters. Ninety-eight per cent of them suffer from climate-related disasters such as drought, floods, tropical storm and that's an increase we have seen since the '80s and basically what we have done is used the best available data, which is a database using figures from the University of Leuven in Belgium and we have projected this towards the future and basically our estimates are that indeed by 2015, six years from now, the number of affected people will increase by 50 per cent.
JOANNA McCARTHY: And in our Asia Pacific region, which countries do you see as the most vulnerable?
BERT: If we look specifically to vulnerabilities to climate change, for example, Vietnam is one of those countries that is predicted to be heavily impacted, largely because of sea level rise.
JOANNA McCARTHY: Now in wealthy countries an average of 23 people die in any given disaster, whereas in the least developed countries this number is 1,052. What accounts for that disparity?
BERT MAERTEN: Well, basically people living in developing countries are much more vulnerable to natural disasters because their coping mechanisms are much lower than those in developed countries. People's livelihoods are much more vulnerable to external shocks, infrastructure is also inadequate and indeed the support mechanisms in cases of natural disasters are often failing. So it is important in preparing for these coming events for vulnerable communities to adapt and to be prepared and increase basically their resilience and reduce their vulnerability. And our report is calling for more investment in disaster reduction and basically it creates communities to basically be better prepared and deal with the natural disasters.
JOANNA McCARTHY: Indeed and you've issued this report really as a warning to international donors, so what kind of money are we talking about? What's needed to address the problems that are generated by climate change?
BERT MAERTEN: Well, today we are actually only spending the equivalent of US$50 per affected person on humanitarian aid. Clearly this is very inadequate to meet the basic needs of those affected but even if we would maintain the current level of spending, humanitarian aid would need to increase from US$14 billion to US$25 billion a year to meet the needs of the increased number of people affected by natural disasters. It is important to recognise that climate change is one of the driving factors increasing the frequency and the intensity of natural disasters and basically affected communities in the global south will need to be assisted in adapting to unavoidable climate change and Oxfam have calculated in earlier work that every year we estimate that $50 billion is needed to assist developing countries in adapting to climate change. These numbers are not overwhelming, certainly if we compare them to the efforts made to address the impacts of the financial crisis. It is very modest funding that really would enable vulnerable communities to adapt and prepare for the upcoming effects of climate change.
