Isabelle Lemaire

Climate change implies more frequent and intense extreme weather, and as a consequence more disasters. For poor communities all over the developing world who are already struggling with high population growth, environmental degradation, and poor infrastructure, higher frequency of disasters means less time for recovery and an added spin on the downward spiral of poverty. Considering this, it should be no surprise that the humanitarian sector is now starting to consider preparedness and risk reduction as an effective way to tackle this growing threat. Humanitarian organisations, like the Red Cross, are now going beyond reacting to disasters and are looking at reducing and preventing the impacts of climate related dramatic weather events.

Poor communities are already adapting to climate change. They have no choice. But these communities are not fully aware of the speed at which the climate is changing or how that will directly affect them. This is where outside actors can assist with coping. For this reason, the Red Cross is now using preparedness and reduction as key tools to save lives and resources as dramatic climatic events intensify.

Urban issues

In an increasingly urban world, especially in Asia and Africa, relief organisations are turning their attention to the urban poor and seeing major cities as highly vulnerable to climate risk. This new perspective is a positive change, but is labelling climate as a risk yet again just creating another box, another category? Climate change is a phenomenon far more complex than ever anticipated. If anything, climate change is not a category, but a quintessential crosscutting theme.

Between the high rises, jammed highways and shopping malls of Jakarta exist many small villages, or slums, housing the poor. Land issues are rife and many of the poorest settle where they can, which often turns out to be on land that is frequently flooded. Many issues are already making living conditions very difficult for these slum dwellers. Flooding is the most obvious, but it doesn’t occur in isolation. The causes are multiple, but a few are: deforestation upstream increases the amount of sediments and blocks the flow of water in an already overwhelmed, clogged by solid waste and mismanaged water system. Subsiding land – because of earthquakes and over-tapping of ground water – makes low-lying land more susceptible to flooding. Over-extraction of table water hardens the ground and increases run-off. Add the more intense rainfall and sea level rise that come with climate change to: poverty, insufficient access to health care as well as education and it becomes that much harder for people with precarious livelihoods to bounce back from disasters.

The residents of these slums have become adept at dealing with seasonal flooding, but they are not quite ready for the level of floods climate change will unleash upon them. Organisations like the Red Cross are looking at adaptation to climate change as a viable option to save lives, money and resources. It is quite a shift in culture for institutions that have been doing relief for decades. But such organisations can make a real difference in preparing communities for the difficult times to come.

A To Do list

Much needs to be done by all parties. On a long list of “to dos”, some can be done immediately. Relief organisations need to build resilience and raise awareness in vulnerable communities, but also work more closely with the government in communicating early warnings before floods. The communities themselves need to find solutions to manage their sewage and solid waste in sustainable ways. Local governments need to work closer with the communities and nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) in finding news way to manage water and housing so that less flooding occurs, but also so that poor communities can have access to safer areas to live in. Climate risk is not a stand-alone category. There are weather-related risks and these become exponentially dangerous as our climate changes. There is an urgent need to adapt for a completely different world that is now taking shape. It is a welcome change that the Red Cross is going beyond response and looking at prevention since all of us, from slum dwellers to governments and NGOs, need to re-think our current practices. If slum dwellers keep throwing their garbage into the drains, governments do not provide adequate water management and relief only thinks about responding to disasters, we will very soon be overwhelmed beyond our capacity to react.

Isabelle Lemaire is a freelance filmmaker recently working with the Red Cross in Indonesia on a documentary on climate-related risks in Jakarta.

The Red Cross Climate Centre: www.climatecentre.org