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Risks of disaster and climate change

Do global warming and bad development suggest a reversal of human progress? Is the development community failing to grasp the links between global warming, natural disasters and unsustainable development? Is economic development undermining the markets of developing countries and reducing their capacities to cope with climate change?

Human development is at a dangerous crossroads, argues a report from the New Economics Foundation (NEF) and the Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies (BCAS), ‘The end of development? Global warming, disasters and the great reversal of human progress’. The report produces evidence that all the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs) – whether to do with nutrition, education, safe water, infant and maternal mortality or gender equality – are placed at risk by global warming. To avert the day of reckoning, we require a new model in which every policy decision must answer one key question: will this increase or decrease vulnerability in an increasingly unstable world?

The risks of disaster arise out of the combination of natural hazards and human vulnerability. By divorcing the global warming debate from the development debate, half of this disaster equation is ignored. Among donors a mindset of response – rather than considering how to reduce the risk of disasters before they strike – is costing lives.

The report presents stark evidence:

Since the 1970s, the number of people affected by disasters has trebled: in recent years, total economic losses have exceeded development assistance.
At current rates of progress, the 2015 target of halving the number of malnourished people will not be achieved for another 60 years.
The number of people using unsafe water is set to double to 2.6 billion by 2025.
In the decade prior to Hurricane Mitch, recurrent disasters – not big enough to register on international databases – killed nearly twice as many people as headline-grabbing Mitch.
Sixteen of the world’s 19 biggest megacities are coastal, threatened both by rising sea levels and subsidence caused by unsustainable rates of groundwater pumping.
Even moderately wealthy and resource-rich countries are at risk: Venezuela’s 1999 floods cost it 10 per cent of GDP.

Appropriate and affordable technology solutions are available. For a mere US $6 a head, Bangladesh’s cyclone shelters have saved thousands of lives. Rainwater harvesting in 20 000 drought-affected villages in India has allowed farming to continue as groundwater dries up. Vietnam’s programme to preserve mangroves has saved lives and improved livelihoods.

The report warns that without determined action the MDGs will blow away in the hurricane winds of a warming world. Among the urgent measures that rich nations must take to lessen the worst effects of climate change and inequitable development are:

viewing every policy through the lens of disaster risk reduction, the need to build resilience and the necessity of reducing northern resource consumption
a global assessment of the local impacts of climate change and the costs of adaptation
directing a greater proportion of aid towards reducing the risk of weather-related disasters at community level and boosting the coping capacities of national authorities and civil society
committing resources to helping countries threatened by global warming – at least equal to the sums spent on subsidising northern fossil fuel production and industries
promoting policy coherence between economists, development planners, climate scientists and disaster managers
giving developing states greater freedom to invest in disaster risk reduction measures and social safety nets for the most vulnerable
planning a progressive reduction in resource consumption by rich nations to free up the environmental space that poor countries need to develop, to begin to address the ecological debt crisis.

Source(s):
‘The end of development? Global warming, disasters and the great reversal of human progress’, New Economics Foundation, by Andrew Simms and Jonathan Walter, 2002 Full document.
‘Fresh Air? Options for the future architecture of international climate change policy’, New Economics Foundation, by Alex Evans, 2002 Full document.
World Disasters Report 2002, International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, 2002 Full document.

id21 Research Highlight: 30 May 2003

Further Information:
Andrew Simms
New Economics Foundation
Cinnamon House, 6-8 Cole Street
London SE1 4YH
UK

Tel: +44 (0)20 7089 2852
Fax: +44 (0)20 7407 6473
Contact the contributor: andrew.simms@neweconomics.org

New Economics Foundation (NEF), UK

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