Red Cross Blogs

A climate change catastrophe is looming

By Sarah Oughton
October 15, 2009 at 5:39 pm

Look, I’m a positive type of person, I smile a lot and I like to see the best in people but even with my favourite rose-tinted specs on I can’t help but face the facts about climate change.

This year has already seen hundreds of weather-related catastrophes, including the devastating typhoon that’s affected millions of people across the Philippines and Vietnam, severe floods which wiped out crops in west Africa and possibly the worst drought in the Horn of Africa since 1991 which is causing a major food crisis.

Certain parts of the world have always been more disaster-prone, but the problem is climate change means weather-related disasters are happening with increasing frequency and intensity. The number of people affected by natural disasters is rising dramatically as coping and recovery mechanisms are being utterly ripped apart.

In this video from our Ethiopia Crisis Appeal last year, a man explains how one year too much rain destroys their crops, the next year drought means nothing grows.

Right now, in Kenya, millions of people are in dire need of food and water – as are many more throughout east Africa – because the drought cycle keeps contracting. I read in the Economist recently how the rains used to fail every nine or ten years, then it started happening every five years now it seems like we are launching an appeal every other year because failed rains are putting people in a desperate situation.

Clearly, we need to get serious about our rapidly warming world and work together as a global community, because one thing’s for sure no super power on earth can avert this catastrophe on their own.

And in case I haven’t spelt it out clearly enough already, climate change is more than an environmental, political and economic issue, it is also a humanitarian issue – and the fact is, it’s the world’s poorest who are bearing the greatest humanitarian cost.

Having said all this, it’s time to put my rose tints back on and tell you the good news.

Disasters cannot always be prevented but, with the right investment in emergency planning and public health initiatives, they do not have to be as devastating.

As one of the most disaster-prone countries in the world, Bangladesh is regularly ravaged by cyclones and floods. Women and children are the most vulnerable during these disasters because they lack information about what to do during an emergency.

But the Red Cross/Red Crescent helps prepare vulnerable people, particularly women, for disasters. It encourages them to take on important roles in the community by sharing information on what to do when high winds or floods are approaching.

Watch this video and find out how our programme is helping to save lives in Bangladesh.

A catastrophe may be looming but there is still hope. I read a great article in The Telegraph the other day, which stated:

If necessity is the mother of invention, we should be looking forward to a breathtakingly innovative agreement on climate change in Copenhagen in December.

Image 1 © Sharon Reader

Image 2 © IFRC

Image 3 © Claudia Janke/BRC

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Tags: Africa, Asia Pacific, Bangladesh, climate change, disaster, drought, Emergencies, emergency planning, floods, food crisis, global warming, Kenya, Philippines, typhoon, Vietnam

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This entry was posted on Thursday, October 15th, 2009 at 5:39 pm and is filed under Emergencies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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