UN Planning Chief: "Inconceivably Bad" Cascade Of Disasters From Climate Awaits
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Robert Glasser, the special representative of the secretary general for disaster risk reduction, said that with the world already falling short in its response to humanitarian emergencies, things would only get worse as climate change adds to the pressure.
He said: If you see that were already spending huge amounts of money and are unable to meet the humanitarian need and then you overlay that with not just population growth
[but] you put climate change on top of that, where were seeing an increase in the frequency and severity of natural disasters, and the knock-on effects with respect to food security and conflict and new viruses like the Zika virus or whatever you realise that the only way were going to be able to deal with these trends is by getting out ahead of them and focusing on reducing disaster risk.
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As the odds of any one event go up, the odds of two happening at the same time are more likely. Well see many more examples of cascading crises, where one event triggers another event, which triggers another event. Glasser pointed to Syria, where years of protracted drought led to a massive migration of people from rural areas to cities in the run-up to the countrys civil war. While he stressed that the drought was by no means the only driver of the conflict, he said droughts around the world could have similarly destabilising effects especially when it came to conflicts in Africa.
Its inconceivably bad, actually, if we dont get a handle on it, and theres a huge sense of urgency to get this right, he said. I think country leaders will become more receptive to this agenda simply because the disasters are going to make that obvious. The real question in my mind is: can we act before thats obvious and before the costs have gone up so tremendously? And thats the challenge.
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http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2016/apr/24/world-heading-for-catastrophe-over-natural-disasters-risk-expert-warns