Nadine Wondje, a native of Manoka, an island off the coast of Cameroon’s economic capital, Douala, fears the sea will soon “swallow” her village. “Those poles and the other stakes you see is what remains of our homes that were once located there,” she told IRIN, pointing out to sea. “We have been displaced many times, each time further and further inland.”
Wondje doesn’t know where her family will go the next time a storm destroys her house, but coastal erosion and regional flooding have forced many away already.
Tens of thousands of people in Cameroon are not only being driven from their homes and communities due to deadly attacks by Boko Haram, but also, increasingly, because of extreme weather events, including drought and monsoon rains.
At least 120 villages have been destroyed since 2012 by flooding, along with thousands of hectares of farmland, according to Cameroon’s Ministry of Territorial Administration and Decentralization.
For the complete article, please see IRIN News Africa.
In an increasingly urbanised world, global resilience cannot be achieved without cities. Separating a local from a national or international sustainability issue is increasingly difficult – be it climate change, migration, or economic development.
Climate diplomacy needs to release itself from the shackles of ‘systemic’ politics in order to achieve a climate agenda that is driven by human security interests, including equity and justice, and strengthen climate change initiatives at local, national and regional levels, in order to bridge the gap caused by the slow pace of progress at the international level.
Leaving No One Behind is the mantra of the 2019 UN-Water campaign. Foreign policy agendas of countries should apply the principle and integrate the voices of the most marginalised into the decision-making process, argues Dhanasree Jayaram.
With climate change increasingly being seen as a security issue, we ask what role the United Nations Security Council could and should play. To answer this question, we are joined on the Climate Diplomacy Podcast by UN expert and Chatham House Associate Fellow Oli Brown. In this podcast, Oli explains some of the challenges that the UN Security Council has had in tackling climate change and outlines the prospects for action in the future.