Month: July 2021

15 July 2021 – by Atoosa Gitiforoz

Post disaster violence against women and girls (VAWG) increases due to the exacerbation of pre-existing gender inequalities, failures of law enforcement and exposure to high-risk environments. 

Gender-sensitive risk reduction policies and the inclusion of women in disaster management are crucial measures in reducing post disaster VAWG and in treating health consequences of climate disasters that primarily impact women. 

‘Women and girls bear a disproportionate burden of disaster-related impacts’. Mortality rates are higher for women than men – in the 1991 Bangladesh cyclone, 90% of deaths were women. The exacerbation of VAWG includes intimate partner violence, sexual violence, female genital mutilation, honour killings and human trafficking. For example, the 2011 Christchurch earthquake in New Zealand saw a 40 per cent increase in levels of rape in rural areas. In Australia, VAWG is five times higher in households impacted by bushfires.

Economic insecurity following climate disasters is another factor that increases VAWG. Following the disaster in Haiti, poverty lead to men looting homes and attacking women. South Asian countries also see higher rates of child marriage as a result of post-disaster poverty. Prolonged reconstruction of people’s homes, that leave people displaced in camps and shelters, also leads to women and girls being left at a heightened risk of violence. Poor law enforcement in temporary shelters and camps also allow VAWG to happen with little to no consequences for perpetrators. 

VAWG as a public health issue and disaster management concern needs to be addressed within policy making, planning and practice. The absence of women’s perspectives in disaster management increases the risk of post-disaster VAWG. Whilst the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 has pledged to be gender inclusive in policy, strategy and practice, the inclusion of women in disaster management on local levels is also needed.

Studies that look at the relationship between long-term climate related damage to environments and VAWG are necessary to understand the more nuanced consequences of environmental degradation.

12 July 2021 – by Evelyn Workman

Extreme weather events displaced three times as many people as violent conflicts in 2020, according to figures published in a report by the Norwegian Refugee Council’s Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC). The report studies the number of displacements happening within borders each year. 

The report, which is released annually, studies the number of displacements happening within borders each year. It reported that there were at least 40 million new internal displacements recorded last year, which is the highest annual figure in 10 years. 30 million of these displacements were the result of natural disasters, such as floods and storms. The other 10 million new displacements were driven by violence and conflict. The figures refer to the total number of times people were forced to flee, rather than the overall number of people.

The report found that 80% of people forced from their homes in 2020 were in Africa and Asia. In Africa most new displacements were due to conflict. Violence in countries such as Burkina Faso and Mozambique and new wars erupting in countries like Ethiopia have caused 6.8 million displacements in Sub-Saharan Africa. In addition, heavy rainfall brought flooding and crop damage to countries already affected by violence, such as Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan and Niger, forcing people who were already displaced to flee again, according to the report. Extreme weather related disasters of this nature resulted in 4.3 million displacements in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2020. 

In Asia, most displacement was caused by extreme weather events. For example, Cyclone Amphan triggered around five million displacements across Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Myanmar. The Atlantic hurricane season was also the most active on record last year, and included Hurricanes Eta and Iota which wreaked havoc across Central America, causing many people to flee coastal areas where damage was the greatest. 

The climate crisis is expected to displace more people in the future due to extreme weather events, and longer-term climate related consequences such as crop failure. It is understood that a warming climate is exacerbating extreme weather events by making them occur more frequently and more intensely. The IDMC report stated, “Every year, millions of people are forced to flee their homes because of conflict and violence. Disasters and the effects of climate change regularly trigger new and secondary displacement, undermining people’s security and wellbeing. The scale of displacement worldwide is increasing, and most of it is happening within countries’ borders.”

8 July 2021 – by Ben St. Laurent

The latest research indicates that climate change could put a third of global food production at risk under high emission scenarios. According to this report, “[t]he most vulnerable areas are the ones at risk of leaving [Safe Climate Spaces] with low resilience to cope with the change, particularly South and Southeast Asia and Africa’s Sudano-Sahelian Zone. The Sudano-Sahelian Zone is a bioclimatic belt extending from the southern edge of the Sahara Desert into the Sub-Saharan savannahs of many African countries. In Ghana, worsening climatic conditions have already displaced many agricultural workers from the Sudano-Sahelian Zone in Ghana’s Upper West Region. The Water & Development Research Group at Aalto University indicated that these trends in agricultural migration, if planned for sustainably, could provide a solution to potential decreases in crop yields.

A study published in Nature Communications expands on the concept of ‘crop migration’ —  whereby agricultural workers migrate to more suitable areas for cultivation, which mitigates damaging impacts of climate change on crop yield. But when unplanned, climate displacement creates refugees prone to higher rates of unemployment, homelessness, and poverty. The researchers conclude that crop migration is substantially responsible for maintaining crop yields in the face of changes to the climate sustained over the past few decades. But they warn that “continued migration may incur substantial environmental costs and will depend on socio-economic and political factors in addition to land suitability and climate.” 

Current projections indicate that climate change is likely to raise global temperatures above the 2°C goal of the 2015 Paris Agreement. However, climate change will have differing effects on agriculture in various regions. Shifts in the winemaking industry illustrate this phenomenon clearly. While grape cultivation is expanding to include regions that have historically been too cold, vineyards in California and Australia have been devastated by wildfires which have displaced agricultural workers. While crop migration can help maintain current levels of agricultural production, the lack of supportive policy leads to unsustainable outcomes for migrants. Without such policies, current trends in crop migration could collapse, resulting in more climate refugees and reduced global agricultural production.