July 2, 2024
DHAKA – This year many parts of the world have experienced some of the hottest temperatures.
Together with a series of heatwaves, there have been extreme weather conditions and natural disasters including droughts, floods, hurricanes and wildfires.
The increasing frequency and intensity of these extreme weather phenomena have only signalled that they are to become more normalised in everyday life in the near future.
In a session titled, “Facing Up to Extreme Weather” at the World Economic Forum in Dalian, China, extreme weather, climate resilience and global collaboration took centre stage as the panellists discussed the possible gaps in dialogue, and the overall humanitarian challenge in this regard.
Panel moderator Fernando J. Gómez, who is Head of Resource Systems and Resilience and a Member of the Executive Committee at the World Economic Forum, shared that the issue surrounding extreme weather patterns and climate change comes with two important elements.
The first, is the gaps in the scene – these include the gaps in understanding, the gaps in ownership by the global communities, the tremendous gap in investment, and the gaps in the roles of different stakeholders.
The second element is that involving the people and how the manifestations of climate change impact individuals and the communities, their assets, their economic productivity, their cultural and social structures, their heritage, their health and their long term progress.
According to the Adaptation Gap Report 2023 published by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the adaptation finance needs of developing countries are 10-18 times as big as international public finance flows, which is over 50 per cent higher than the previous range estimate.
In this regard, panellist Amanda Leland, Executive Director at Environmental Defence Fund spoke of the communities that are at most risk at the moment – the farmers and fisherfolks. She highlghtted that the impact on them holds global significance, as it stands at the nexus of climate and food.
“The reality of the climate crisis is reshuffling the way the world is, how it operates, how we need to think about it, and how we need to plan for the future,” she said.
She said 15 plants account for for 90% of the calories we intake from plants today.
“Farmers and fisherfolks are on the front lines of climate change, and their worlds are dramatically changing before their very eyes. So we need to create a food system that’s going to be resilient and recognise that there’s already warming happening that will continue to happen even if we achieve all of our climate goals,” she told the audience.
However, the climate crisis does more than just impact livelihoods and impact the global food supply. When it comes to humanitarian challenges, not only is the climate crisis responsible for displacing millions, but it also exacerbates the plight of vulnerable communities who are seeking refuge due to conflict already.
Panellist Hai Kyung Jun, Director of Asia and the Pacific at the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), brought forth this issue and said: “About 120 million people are currently displaced due to conflict or persecution, and climate change is compounding their difficulties. Lack of resources, lack of water, for instance, exacerbates conflict and leads to more difficulties for people.”
“Many of these people have been displaced to neighbouring countries, for example, the 1 billion people from the Rohingya community in Bangladesh who had been displaced from Myanmar, or they were displaced within the country as in Pakistan in 2022 due to the floods,” she said.
“It is already devastating for the people who had to leave their homes but also the countries around the countries in conflict as they may not be the richest countries themselves,” she added.
While the challenges seem to be piling on, the global community and the stakeholders, especially ones in business, have valuable insights towards sustainable solutions.
Panellist Veronica Scotti, Chairperson of Public Sector Solutions at Swiss Re Management Ltd, shared, “A critical step in the resilience curve is one where vulnerability is correctly assessed. Of course even in risk prone areas, it is still possible to build economic activity, but those areas need to do so with an understanding of the risks that are to come. Therefore the planning has to be done with resilience in mind.”
Panellist Scotti further said “With an understanding of risk, building codes and standards are better risk informed, then we are really building with resilience in mind.”
“The consequences of better risk awareness are fewer losses but also fewer costs to society; fewer business interruptions, decreased loss of productivity, fewer interruptions to economic activities, populations being better protected, finance becoming more affordable, insurance becoming more affordable,” she added.