Climate change is a global threat to national as well as human security. The resulting risks for sustainable economic development, peace, and livelihoods are increasingly recognized as an important factor in political decision making.
The WorldRiskReport 2015 highlights the urgency of addressing climate change and the compound risk factors it is linked to. These risks have the potential to turn a natural hazard such as drought or cyclone into a disaster. If societies do not mitigate and adapt to climate change, more extreme and more frequent natural hazard events in the future will further increase risks across the globe.
The focus of the 2015 report is the relationship between disaster risk and food (in-)security. “While there is no ‘statistical link’, both reinforce each other”, Peter Mucke, Managing Director of Bündnis Entwicklung Hilft (Alliance Development Works) and initiator of the report, emphasized during the report launch. People are more exposed to natural hazards when food insecurity induces them to migrate to new areas or countries. In order to reduce disaster risk and enhance resilience, agricultural, climate and development policies need to be interlinked, the authors of the report sustain.
The WorldRiskReport is published yearly by Alliance Development Works in collaboration with the United Nations University Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS). It applies the World Risk Index, a composite tool which accounts for both the exposure of countries to natural hazards, as well as for their specific social, economic and ecological conditions. Unstable political and institutional structures, for instance in (post-)conflict settings, impact a country’s vulnerability to natural hazards. Jörn Birkmann, co-author of the WorldRiskReport, highlighted that the issues of governance as well as military conflict influence a country’s capacities for adaptation and disaster risk reduction. The importance of considering state fragility was recently recognized by the G7 Foreign Ministers. In 2015 they committed to making resilience a central foreign policy priority, based on the recommendations of the report “A New Climate For Peace”.
Integrating international efforts in the areas of climate adaptation, disaster risk reduction and conflict prevention is a critical path to pursue. The year 2015 has already been marked by several high-profile conferences on these issues – in Sendai, Addis Ababa, and New York, with important new agendas such as the Sustainable Development Goals. The outcomes of these meetings, as well as of the upcoming climate conference in Paris, need to be followed up by concrete actions.
The latest climate talks unravelled when parties failed to reach consensus on the global carbon market mandated by the Paris Agreement. The carbon market controversy emerged amidst new tensions between a growing grassroots climate movement and the climate sceptic agenda of populist leaders. The ball is now in the court of the climate laggards, but they can only halt global climate action for so long.
This year’s annual UN climate conference, COP25 in Madrid, became the longest on record when it concluded after lunch on Sunday, following more than two weeks of fraught negotiations. It had been scheduled to wrap up on Friday.
On 29 November in Rabat, adelphi partnered with the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) to hold a regional dialogue on climate change and fragility risks in North Africa and the Sahel.
As the second week of COP25 begins in Madrid, it is time to stress once more the importance of building momentum for adaptation. There is obviously a need for adaptation planning, implementation and financing. However, so far only seventeen countries have presented National Adaptation Plans (NAP) - despite international partners providing important support.