SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt — As
climate change compounds the impact of
crises and conflict, aid workers and politicians are looking for new ways to
help those affected and mitigate the damage to their environment.
اضافة اعلان
“Climate change
is both a stressor and a risk multiplier,” said Anne Witkowsky, US assistant
secretary of state for conflict and stabilization operations.
It can lead to
“increased crop and fishery failures, water insecurity, depletion of national
resources, more frequent extreme weather events, and other destabilizing
effects”, she told a roundtable at this week’s COP27 UN climate conference in
Egypt.
Some 70 percent
of refugees and 80 percent of internally displaced people come from countries
deemed among those most vulnerable to the effects of climate change, according
to the
UN refugee agency, UNHCR.
“Four out of
every 10 refugees are hosted in climate-vulnerable countries,” said UNHCR
climate expert Michelle Yonetani.
They “often live
alongside host communities that are in similarly precarious situations” and
also need help, she added.
Namita Khatri,
diplomatic adviser for Asia Pacific at the International Committee of the Red
Cross, decried the lack of a global response.
“Climate needs
are multiplying, multiplying the humanitarian needs, and are being unmet,” she
said.
This burden
“cannot be met by humanitarians alone, nor do we necessarily have the
experience of climate action to meet these needs that are quite specific and
complex”.
Collaboration
between climate experts and humanitarian workers is key to getting climate
finance and expertise to conflict settings, Khatri said.
But climate
experts must also accept some additional risks in being more present on the
ground, she argued.
Prevention
Another key focus is trying to predict climate change impacts on
specific communities so that they can adapt.
Donors, however,
are more likely to reach into their pockets following a disaster rather than
invest in prevention, aid workers say.
But to finance
climate prevention efforts in Mali, the
World Food Program (WFP) for the past
three years has used an African Union-operated insurance scheme that is
triggered when certain thresholds are crossed, with donor countries paying the
premiums.
The West African
country has been battling a security, political and humanitarian crisis since
2012 after jihadist and separatist insurgencies erupted.
After a severe
drought last year, whose impact on crops still lingers, the WFP received a $7.1
million payment via the scheme that allowed it to help more than 200,000 people
in the worst affected regions.
“Every dollar
that goes towards prevention helps us save seven dollars,” said Nouhoum Maiga,
secretary general of the Malian Red Cross.
‘Knowledge is there’
The Niger River’s inner delta in the country’s center has
“receded by 35 percent”, he told AFP, leaving inhabitants “crammed around the
small remaining areas of water”.
Armed groups are using the situation to turn local
populations against each other, Maiga added, leading to bloody conflicts and to
the formation of militias.
But the deteriorating conditions are caused not “only
by climate, but also the government”, he charged.
According to Maiga, the central government has
abandoned the areas, “reinforcing the hold of these armed groups”.
To break this cycle, the Red Cross in Mali aims to
empower local communities and boost their capacity to respond to
climate-induced crises.
This includes risk assessment and prevention — such
as deciding where to move livestock or build homes to protect against floods,
or even developing alert systems.
“We organize people so that they are better
prepared, and to minimize the effect when the risk arrives,” Maiga said.
He stressed his organization did not seek to impose
solutions.
“The knowledge is already there, it must be used.”
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