Category: Current Affairs Regions

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Latin American Countries Are Facing ‘’Internal Climate Migration’’

close-up photography of world map

22 November 2021 – by Deniz Saygi

Climate change impacts every area involved with human interaction, and these suffering areas could force people to migrate in distress. Regarding these unfortunate events, the governments are expected to declare an emergence of hotspots where livelihoods are threatened by climate change as early as 2030. These hotspots will continue to intensify and expand – if governments will not take action to reduce climate emissions. 

Today, climate change is emerging as a dominant cause of internal migration throughout Latin American countries. According to the Groundswell Report, internal climate migrants could number over 17 million, representing up to 2.6 per cent of the region of South America’s total population. 

In the recent past, floods and landslides displaced 295,000 people in Brazil, while Hurricane Dorian caused 465,000 new displacements in seven countries in the Caribbean. Also, concerning the decrease in the production of crops and food shortages, Guatemalan people were forced to migrate after droughts and floods. 

Currently, this internal migration process is gradually evolving amongst Latin American countries since the region is vulnerable to the effects of climate change. By 2030, Latin Americans could lose their jobs (2.5 million jobs, in particular) because of the increasing heatwaves. Moreover, it is estimated that the damages caused by climate change and global warming will cost the countries in the region US$ 100 billion per annum by 2050. Therefore, internal migration amongst the regions is inevitable. 

To incorporate the internal migration component into their climate change strategies and regulations, some Latin American countries are making progress: For example, Peru’s Framework Law on Climate Change calls for addressing forced migration as a result of negative climate impacts. Additionally, Honduras’s National Strategy for Climate Change proposes to establish both legal and institutional frameworks for the adaptation strategies with regard to the migrations due to climate change. 

Needless to say, the governments must promote adaptation measures to reduce vulnerability and prevent internal migration for the effects of climate change in the regions where the local people and small scale industries suffer most. Also, a more inclusive focus on adaptation and resilience strategies is needed to support vulnerable communities at risk of migration between Latin American countries.

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The 2021 Nobel Prize in Physics is Given to Research on Climate Change

iceberg on water

8 November 2021 – by Deniz Saygi

Regarding his work of climate change models that provide help for predicting the impact of greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane etc.) on climate change, Syukuro Manabe, a senior meteorologist at Princeton University, won the Nobel Prize in Physics (along with Klaus Hasselmann, a professor at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg, and Giorgio Parisi, a professor at the Sapienza University of Rome).

Using a high-speed computer in the 1960s, Mr Manabe has developed physical models which predicted that if the level of carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere doubles, the global surface temperature increases by 2.36 C. In 1989, he gained success in developing a model for the scientific predictions about global warming by involving the weather conditions of the atmosphere, ocean and land. Manabe also led a research team concerning global warming and climate change in Japan for four years beginning from 1997.

Highlighting the difficulty of carrying out the experiments to classify the problems and their status, Syukuro Manabe underlines the significance of the scientific predictions to fight against global warming and climate change. Since his numerical modelling system predicts and investigates how the Earth’s surface temperatures are influenced by atmospheric conditions and the Earth’s complex climate systems, Syukuro Manabe’s ideas and works are foundational for all modern climate researches that have been ongoing.

“Climate [policy] involves not only the environment but also energy, agriculture, water and just about everything you can imagine. I never imagined that this thing I was beginning to study [would have] such huge consequences,” Mr Manabe said during the conference after winning the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physics.

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Paraguay Faces the Most Critical Level of Drought in its History

brown soil

26 October 2021 – by Deniz Saygi

The Paraná River – which winds through southeastern Brazil, Paraguay, southeastern Uruguay, and northern Argentina – is at its lowest level since 1944 and has been experiencing severe drought since 2019. In comparison with the other countries, Paraguay suffers the most because of this unfortunate situation since the country is landlocked and mostly relies on its rivers concerning its many social, environmental, and commercial services. As a consequence, a state of emergency on the Paraná River has been declared by the government. Moreover, the CAF-Development Bank of Latin America listed Paraguay as the most vulnerable country to climate emergency amongst the South American countries. If the necessary precautions are not taken, the increase in the level of drought will bring uncontrollable difficulties in the economies of South American countries, which have local development models to a large extent, and will cause extreme losses, especially in regions regarding rich biodiversity hotspots such as the Amazons.

Juan Carlos Muñoz, director of Paraguay’s National Shipping and Ports Administration Body (ANNP) states that the drought has affected the economy tremendously. Mr Muñoz also declares that the shipping sector regarding river transport has faced a great loss of revenue (nearly $100 million). Furthermore, there is a record of enormous deforestation mainly caused by both state-propelled soybean and cattle ranching booms. These sectors are currently having struggles for exporting their products by river transport due to the drought levels of the Paraná River.

Roger Monte Domecq, a hydrology professor at the National University of Asunción, underlines the increasing evidence that proves the droughts all across the region are caused by human-driven factors. Domecq also said it is a necessity that more studies are needed to be conducted in order to determine the specific impacts of global warming, high levels of deforestation and land-use transformation observed across the region – particularly in the Amazon area where the water cycle feeds precipitation within the Paraná Basin is being disrupted. According to Domecq, there are no significant rain periods that will be coming next few months. ”There is no end to the drought sight. The weather phenomenon known as La Niña – which brings dry weather to the Paraná Basin – is looming,” he said.

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Over 2 Million Kenyans Are at Risk of Starvation Due to Ongoing Drought

green leaf tree near mountain covered by snow at daytime

12 October 2021 – by Evelyn Workman

A severe drought affecting half of Kenya has led to an estimated 2.1 million people facing starvation. The National Drought Management Authority (NDMA) said people living in the Arid and Semi-Arid Lands (ASAL) region of the country will be in “urgent need” of food aid over the next six months.

The crisis is the cumulative impact of two consecutive poor rainy seasons coupled with the COVID-19 pandemic, diseases and pests, leading President Uhuru Kenyatta declaring the drought a national disaster on 8th September. 

The two previous rainy seasons, the 2020 short rains (October to December) and the 2021 long rains (March to May), were both characterised by late onset rainfall and poor distribution of rainfall, across the ASAL. Furthermore, the upcoming short rains season (October to December 2021) is forecasted to be below average, exacerbating the already deadly conditions facing people living in the region. 

Secretary general of the Kenya Red Cross, Asha Mohammed, highlighted the interplay of several factors in worsening the situation in the region, “You have two seasons of depressed rains, desert locusts ravaging farmlands in the same counties and people fighting over the few resources available. That is the making of a disaster.”

The number of people facing insecurity is expected to rise to nearly 2.4 million from November of this year, according to the latest Integrated Phase Classification (IPC) analysis. 

Due to many open water sources drying up across pastoral agricultural areas, the NDMA has reported that pastoralists have had to walk further in search of water. Household trekking distances to watering points have increased to an average of 2 to 6 kilometers, up from an average of 1 to 5 kilometers. Consequently tensions among communities have risen, as people have had to travel longer distances and along different routes in search of food and water, according to an assessment by the ASAL Humanitarian Network.

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Wildfires Burn Across Siberia as Russia Launches Marketplace for Forestry Investors to Earn Carbon Credits

silhouette of trees during sunset

6 October 2021 – by Ben St. Laurent

Wildfires that began earlier than usual within Russia’s Sakha Republic, typically known for its record cold temperatures and permafrost, are responsible for unprecedented levels of carbon emissions. According to the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS), the fires worsened through June and July, and continue to burn across northeastern Siberia later in the season than usual. The European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) reported that data from CAMS suggests wildfires in the Sakha Republic have released approximately 800 megatons of carbon dioxide equivalent by mid August. 

These fires have also been recognised for their indirect impacts on the Earth’s climate by reducing the capability of Russia’s boreal forest to act as a major carbon sink for Russia and the potential for their smoke to settle on arctic sea ice and accelerate its melting process. Considering recent extreme wildfires across the globe, David Bowman, a fire ecologist at the University of Tasmania, expects that “scientists might have to rethink the impact on global climate of extreme blazes.” 

Lax fire laws in Russia permit fire authorities to allow wildfires to burn uncontained where the cost of containment outweighs potential damages. Even though the region is sparsely populated, the wildfires threaten many rural communities in the Sakha Republic. According to Patrick Reevell of ABC News, firefighters working to protect these villages from the blaze “blamed the scale of the fires on authorities’ failure to extinguish the blazes early on, a consequence they said in part of cuts to the federal forestry fire service.” 

A program launching in Russia aimed at attracting private investment into Russian forestry, would allow companies to earn carbon credits if the CO₂ absorption of their plots improves. Although reliance on carbon sinks has been criticised for permitting countries to avoid the necessary emission reductions needed to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement, investment into proper forest management could minimise the impact of wildfires on local communities in the region. 

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Climate Change Strengthens Hurricanes and Threatens Environmental Justice

Double exposure of Hurricane Ida approaching New Orleans on August 29, 2021.

27 September 2021 – by Ben St. Laurent

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a UN body responsible for assessing the scientific basis for climate change, recently published its 6th Assessment Report (AR6) which strengthened the scientific certainty that human-induced climate change is amplifying the severity of extreme weather events across the globe. According to Sarah Gibbens’ article in National Geographic on the effect of climate change on hurricanes, scientists will spend months modeling Ida’s path under low-emission scenarios to ascertain the impacts of climate change on the storm’s intensity. However, Gibbens notes that on a broader scale scientists have already attributed the increasing intensity of tropical cyclones to warmer ocean temperatures, their increased capacity of precipitation to the increased atmospheric temperature, and their slower crawl over land to weakening of wind currents due to uneven warming. 

The results from a recent study published in Nature cautiously suggests that climate change is also contributing to an increase in the intensification rate of hurricanes, which is associated with “the highest forecast errors and cause a disproportionate amount of human and financial losses,” but indicated the need for further research. Hurricane Ida’s approach to Louisiana’s coastline is evidence of this pattern — the storm intensified at a rate four times faster than required to be considered ‘rapidly intensifying’.  Ida’s rapid intensification was a major factor in Louisiana’s response to Hurricane Ida which gave emergency systems less time to prepare and residents fewer days to evacuate.

In the wake of Hurricane Ida, the internationally recognized meteorologist Marshall Shepherd questions whether public officials need a “new evacuation playbook for an era of rapidly-intensifying hurricanes.” New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell encouraged voluntary evacuations but stated that because Ida intensified more rapidly than city officials were prepared for, it prevented them from issuing a mandatory evacuation. Earlier evacuation could have made a difference for the growing number of lives lost to Hurricane Ida in Louisiana. As of September 9th, 26 Louisiana residents have been killed by Hurricane Ida, with 43 more deaths recorded as Ida swept across the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast regions of the country.

Outside of Louisiana, the majority of fatalities were clustered in New York and New Jersey where record-setting rainfall flooded streets, subway stations, and homes. Flooding in New York City has become an environmental justice issue that disproportionately affects impoverished and immigrant communities who are more likely to live in single-exit underground units which don’t meet safety requirements. As flash floods ripped through New York City, water flowed into basement dwellings, killing 11 residents who became trapped in their homes. The impact of flooding on immigrant communities in Queens is part of a larger trend of double displacement observed among communities displaced by various factors who are subsequently at greater risk of displacement from environmental factors. Jennifer Mooklal, a resident of Queens whose neighbors the Ramskriets drowned in their basement apartment as Ida passed over, told the New York Times that residents have “been dealing with this problem for years” but despite their pleas to the city, she feels that “no one is listening….” 

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Historic Levels of Rainfall Across Europe Lead to Deadly Floods

traffic light sign underwater

16 September 2021 – by Evelyn Workman

In mid-July devastating floods hit several European countries, leading to widespread destruction. Record rainfall in many regions, in particular across Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, caused rivers to burst their banks. There have been at least 229 fatalities as a result of the floods. 

Germany was hit with the most devastating consequences of the flooding. With 184 deaths reported, the floods are the most deadly natural disaster in Germany since the North Sea flood of 1962. The brunt of the destruction was witnessed in the district of Ahrweiler, Rhineland-Palatinate, where heavy rainfall caused the river Ahr to overflow, destroying many buildings and causing at least 110 deaths. It was reported by the German Weather Service that some areas witnessed the heaviest rainfall in a century.

In the Netherlands, the river Maas in the region of Limburg reached its highest summertime level in over 100 years. The town of Valkenburg aan de Geul was one of the worst hit in the region, with damages assessed to be €400 million, and 700 homes rendered uninhabitable. 

Meanwhile, in Belgium, all 200,000 residents of the eastern city of Liège were urged to evacuate on 15th July due to concerns that the river Meuse would burst its banks. Rainfall was most intense in the east of the country, with records hitting almost 3 times the average rainfall for the month of July. 

While many factors contributed to the floods, scientists say that a warming climate makes extreme rainfall more likely. In the aftermath of the flooding, German chancellor Angela Merkel has called for Germany to step up its fight against climate change. Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo declared 20 July a national day of mourning for the lives lost. He said that this disaster “could be the most catastrophic flooding our country has ever seen.”

World Meteorological Organization (WMO) spokesperson, Clare Nullis, has stated that under future climate change scenarios we will continue to witness more extreme weather events such as intense rainfall. Nullis has urged more climate action from all countries, saying: “We need to step up climate action, we need to step up the level of ambition”.

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Thousands Forced to Flee as Wildfires Ravage Turkey and Greece

white smoke coming from a gray clouds

4 September 2021 – by Atoosa Gitiforoz

In recent months, out of control wildfires have brought large-scale blazes across Greece and Turkey, forcing thousands to flee.

According to the European Forest Fire Information system, around 160,000 hectares of forest have burned in Turkey this year, four times the average between 2008-2020. Greece has seen temperatures soar to 45 degrees Celsius – the hottest heat wave in decades. Dozens of villages across both countries have been evacuated, as blazes continue to destroy people’s homes.

Three people have been arrested in suspicion of starting fires, however, officials have been pointing to the wider climate crisis as the underlying catalyst; fires continue to be fed by strong winds and unusually high temperatures.

A report draft recently released by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), as part of the IPCC’s sixth assessment report, presents some significant findings. The report projects a more accurate Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS) estimate: from the previous estimate of 1.5C and 4.5C in 2014, to 2.5C and 4C in 2021, with the best estimate at 3 degrees Celsius. 

The report, written by over 230 leading scientists across the globe, points to areas vulnerable to water stress and wildfires as at high risk of worsening drought. The report makes it clear that in order to avert these outcomes, rapid reductions in CO2 and greenhouse emissions are necessary, or both water shortages and wildfire trends will continue to worsen.

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Scientists Confirm That Amazon is Now Emitting More CO2 Than It is Absorbing

aerial view of green trees and river during daytime

24 August 2021 – by Evelyn Workman

A recent study has revealed that significant parts of the Amazon rainforest are now emitting more carbon dioxide than it absorbs. Up until recently, the Amazon has been one of the most important sinks of CO2, assisting in the absorption of the emissions causing climate change, however, this new research demonstrates that the Amazon is actually starting to help accelerate climate change.

The causes of this shift from carbon sink to carbon source are investigated in the study, published in Nature in July. It found that most of the emissions are caused by fires, many of which are deliberately started to clear land for beef and soy production. In addition to the fires, hotter temperatures and droughts also contribute to the forest becoming a CO2 source.

The researchers measured CO2 above the rainforest canopy at four different locations during the period from 2010 to 2018. At these locations 600 vertical profiles of CO2 were taken up to 4,500 m above the canopy. This allowed the researchers to investigate how the whole Amazon is changing. While previous studies have established that the Amazon’s CO2 uptake has been declining based on ground based measurements, this study is the first to use atmospheric measurements across a vast geographical area.

Lead author and researcher at Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE), Luciana Gatti, says the research highlights some bad news, that “forest burning produces around three times more CO2 than the forest absorbs.” 

Additionally, she emphasised that, “the places where deforestation is 30% or more show carbon emissions 10 times higher than where deforestation is lower than 20%.”

These insights are made even more worrying by the fact that deforestation rates have been higher under Brazil’s current president, Jair Bolsonaro, than under any past administration. And deforestation is showing no sign of halting, with rates hitting a 12 year high in 2020.

“Imagine if we could prohibit fires in the Amazon – it could be a carbon sink,” said Gatti. “But we are doing the opposite – we are accelerating climate change.”

“The worst part is we don’t use science to make decisions,” she said. “People think that converting more land to agriculture will mean more productivity, but in fact we lose productivity because of the negative impact on rain.”

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Floods in Bangladesh and Beyond

green trees on body of water during daytime

20 August 2021 – by Atoosa Gitiforoz

A new study published by Nature reveals a stark increase in the number of people exposed to flooding. For example, between 2000 and 2015, the number of people exposed to flood-affected areas in Bangladesh increased by 14.3 million. 

The study, using Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) from 2000-2018 produced 913 flood maps, demonstrating a 20-24% increase in flood exposure in the first 15 years of the 21st century – almost 10 times higher than previous estimates from 1970-2010. Whilst previous studies focused on Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, this study identifies 57 countries where flood exposure is expected to grow. 

It is worth noting that one of the reasons this study has in fact produced such high estimates is due to the inclusion of dam breaks, pluvial events and snowmelts – factors often not included in other global models. However, the study does likely underestimate flood exposure trends in rapidly urbanizing areas, says the author; this is due to uncertainties in satellites and population growth modelling. 

The study concludes by pointing to ways flood-exposed population estimates could be improved in the future i.e. including more events over longer periods of time or at higher resolution, increasing the number of modelled events such as flash flooding where satellite temporal coverage is inadequate, comparing observation and modelling trends and refining future global population spatial estimates. 

Enhancing both estimation and vulnerability analyses can ultimately boost flood adaptation efforts and drive investment into mitigation efforts.