Blog Action Day: van klimaatverandering naar een betere toekomst
Vandaag is het Blog Action Day. Bloggers van over de hele wereld schrijven vandaag een artikel waarin aandacht wordt gevraagd voor het groeiende probleem van klimaatverandering. Het doel is om iedereen in dialoog te laten treden richting een betere toekomst. Spotlighteffect draagt graag haar steentje bij. Philip Rouwenhorst schreef voor IPS vanuit het hoofdkwartier van de Verenigde Naties een artikel over Disaster Risk Reduction en sprak verschillende kopstukken in de kwestie.
The number of disasters and the impact they have on people all over the world is still growing. According to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies there is no such thing as natural disaster. They say natural hazards only become disasters when they disturb society’s normal functioning. Disaster is unnatural and risk reduction measures diminish the odd of it occurring. Vulnerable communities continue to be devastated and millions of lives and livelihoods are threatened. As are the achievement of the UN Development Millennium goals.
According to a new United Nations report, during the period of July 2006 – June 2007 a total of 366 disasters affected nearly 200 million people, killed more than 18,200 and produced damage of more than $30 billion.
The biggest impact is caused by floods. With the largest death toll of previously mentioned disasters, of 6,729, and the greatest damage, of over $14 billion, 134 million people were affected by the extreme weather.
Coinciding with International Disaster Risk Reduction Day, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) presented its new initiative, the Global Alliance for Disaster Risk Reduction.
“In July of this year during a global platform in Geneva, we made the commitment to massively upscale our efforts on risk reduction and to reduce disaster losses. The alliance was launched at the United Nations in New York. It’s fundamentally a commitment from our family of Red Cross and Red Crescent members”, Mukesh Kapila, Special Representative for the alliance, told IPS.
The new Red Cross alliance has little money itself so far, according to Kapila.
“After today we hope to mobilize governments and private partners. We expect to receive donations from the traditional governments like the United States, the European Union, Japan and Australia. Moreover, we have good indications the World Bank will donate.”
“The worldwide Red Cross spends $100 million a year. To give an indication, we need 20 per cent of that figure. Because risk reduction should not affect other Red Cross disaster management projects negatively, the annual amount of money Red Cross spends should increase up to $120 million a year.”
The United Nations and the IFRC work closely together and given the growing problem, they claim more money is still needed for further development in disaster risk reduction. In 2005 the United Nations established the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF). With 62 contributing UN-member states, CERF is aiming on a funding level of $450 million a year, an increase of 25 per cent compared to 2007.
Several governments still haven’t paid this years contribution.
Asked whether CERF’s goals are achievable, John Holmes, United Nations Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, Emergency Relief Coordinator and Head of the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, told IPS, “I think it is an achievable goal. We haven’t got the final figure for this year yet, but I hope we will be near $400 million for 2007. To me, that seems not to far from $450 million next year.”
“But indeed we haven’t got all contributions in yet. To achieve our goal we have to either persuade the existing donors to give more, some are extremely generous already, or find new donors.”
“We have an exceptionally wide donor base already, but now we need to find some of the countries which are outside the traditional donors and persuade them that they should be contributing too”, Holmes stressed. “It’s an issue which concerns everybody. Therefore all countries should contribute to the extent that they can.”
Money is usually spent on big media covered disasters like the 2004 tsunami. Kapila told IPS most media headlines indeed concern high profile disasters, but added up together more lives are lost in disasters we never hear of. The Global Alliance for Disaster Risk Reduction wants to focus on those massive tragedies as well
“Natural disasters take place all over the world, but Africa and Asia are regions of most concern”, Kapila said, emphasizing “both continents suffer from massive floods and typhoons and our focus is on the poorest and most vulnerable nations on the planet. Contrary to what many think, disasters we are concerned with are not just floods and storms, but earthquakes for instance as well.”
The growing number of extreme weather events is closely linked to climate change. Over the past 30 years the number of disasters has increased three times and the number of people affected is doubling roughly every ten years”, according to Holmes. “Exceptional floods in Asia and more recently in Africa show us an unmistakable link between these kind of extreme weather events and climate change. We’re seeing the effects of climate change right now. That makes risk reduction so important.”
Copyright: Inter Press Service.
Geachte Spotlight New York-correspondent, goed om een bericht van de andere kant van de oceaan te lezen!