Category: Current Affairs Regions

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Climate Crisis to Blame for Severe Madagascar Drought

brown grass field with green tree under blue sky during daytime

17 August 2021 – by Evelyn Workman

The worst drought in over four decades has hit southern Madagascar, leaving thousands of families on the brink of starvation, the UN food agency has warned. It reported that more than 1.14 million people are food insecure as a result of the severe droughts in the region.

According to the World Food Programme (WFP), thousands of people have been forced to flee their homes in search of food, and those who remained have been sustaining themselves on raw cactus fruits, wild leaves and locusts for several months. The district of Ambovombe is one of the worst affected areas, where global acute malnutrition rates have reached 27 percent, leaving many facing a life-threatening situation. In addition, malnutrition levels in children under five in Madagascar have almost doubled over the last four months, to a frightening 16.5 per cent. It is estimated that 14,000 people are already in catastrophic conditions, and this is expected to double to 28,000 by October. Few people have been able to access the area due to the remote location and weak road infrastructure, resulting in the delivery of aid being delayed.

World Food Programme (WFP) Executive Director David Beasley, who visited the region, has said, “This is not because of war or conflict, this is because of climate change”.

Beasley has urged people to not turn their backs on the people of Madagascar, and, “to stand up, act and keep supporting the Malagasy government to hold back the tide of climate change and save lives.”

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Miami Condo Collapse – Did Climate Change Play a Role?

palm trees near buildings

16 August 2021 – by Evelyn Workman

Champlain Towers South, a 12-story beachfront condo in the Miami suburb of Surfside, Florida, partially collapsed on the 24th June. The death toll from the disaster sits at 79, as of 10th July, while a further 61 remain unaccounted for. Investigations are still being carried out to determine the precise cause of the collapse, however, questions have been raised over the impact the climate crisis and rising sea levels had on destabilising the building, and prompts further discussions on how climate change will impact other buildings in south Florida.

A 2018 engineering report on the structure found “abundant cracking and spalling in various degrees” in concrete columns, and that deteriorating waterproofing could cause “exponential damage” via the expansion of these cracks. 

“Cracks in the concrete allows more sea water to get in, which causes further reactions and the spreading of cracks. If you don’t take care of it, that can cause a structure failure”, said Director of the University of Florida’s International Center for Adaptation Planning and Design, Zhong-Ren Peng.

While experts say that the exact role of rising seas in the collapse is still unclear, buildings will become unstable due to the advancements of salt water which will weaken the foundations. Higher sea level increases the amount of saltwater the foundations of buildings are exposed to, and with most of south Florida already only a few feet above sea level, other buildings in the area could be subjected to a similar fate 

Harold Wanless, a geologist at the University of Miami, says the sea level in south Florida could increase by a foot each decade in the second half of this century, depending on the melting of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets. 

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UK Parliament Considers Joining Independent Expert Panel in Recommending ‘Ecocide’ as New Crime for International Criminal Court

gray and brown train railway near green green moutain

11 August 2021 – by Ben St. Laurent

In a renewed effort to incorporate environmental protection into existing bodies of international criminal law, an expert panel has developed a legal definition for the term ‘ecocide’ — “unlawful or wanton acts committed with knowledge that there is a substantial likelihood of severe and widespread or long-term damage to the environment being caused by those acts.” The expert panel included independent criminal and environmental lawyers, jurists, authors, and professors from around the world. The Stop Ecocide Foundation, responsible for convening the commission, is working to amend the Rome Statute to include ecocide within the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) jurisdiction.

According to Guardian legal affairs correspondent Haroon Siddique, this present attempt marks the most recent in a long battle to establish a legal framework for ecocide, including an effort to include ecocide in the 1972 Stockholm Declaration, as well as the 1998 Rome Statute which established the ICC. While it currently lacks explicit jurisdiction over environmental cases, in recent years the ICC has interpreted crimes against humanity to include environmental destruction, with implications for member states as well as corporations operating within their borders. If the Rome Statute is amended to include ecocide, it would join the ranks of international crimes including genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and crimes of aggression. Prof Philippe Sands QC, who co-chaired the committee, told The Guardian that the new definition of Ecocide “catches the most egregious acts”, including major oil spills and deforestation, but excludes daily activities that more broadly contribute to climate change.

Already, an amendment to the 2021 UK Environment Bill has been introduced by Green Party peer and former party leader Natalie Bennett, which would adopt the new legal definition of ecocide into UK law. If retained in its current state after the review process, this amendment would also create a path for domestic criminal recourse against those responsible for committing ecocide in the UK. Another amendment to the Environment Bill (page 85) proposed by Baroness Bennett would require that the UK government support an amendment to the 1998 Rome Statute, which would begin the process of the ICC expanding its jurisdiction to include ecocide. 

Article 121 of the Rome Statute maintains that any of the Court’s 123 state parties may propose an amendment to the treaty, and the ICC would require the support of at least a two-thirds majority of member states to adopt the amendment. If adopted, the amendment would enter into force for all ratifying parties one year after ratification, allowing the court to “exercise its jurisdiction regarding a crime covered by the amendment when committed by that State Party’s nationals or on its territory.” 

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Heatwave Linked to Hundreds of Deaths in U.S. Pacific Northwest and Canada

silhouette of mountains during sunset

9 August 2021 – by Evelyn Workman

A devastating heatwave hit the US Pacific Northwest and Canada last week, shattering temperature records in many areas across the region. The heatwave was caused by a persistent area of high pressure, known as a “heat dome”.

In Canada, temperatures rose to nearly 50°C, leading to devastation, including hundreds of deaths, melted power lines and wildfires. Lytton, British Columbia, broke Canada’s hottest temperature record on three consecutive days last week. A wildfire consequently destroyed the settlement on Wednesday, the heatwave leaving perfect conditions for its rapid spread. The community were evacuated, however, at least two people are believed to have died in the wildfire. Similarly, Seattle and Portland recorded three consecutive days of record breaking temperatures, peaking at 42.2°C and 46.1°C, respectively, on Monday 28th June.

A week after the worst consequences of the heatwave were witnessed, health officials are only now being able to take stock of the disastrous effects the heatwave has had on the communities. The heat was blamed for 95 deaths in Oregon, while 13 deaths were reported to be heat related in Seattle, Washington. Nearly 500 people may have been killed in Canada as a result of the record breaking temperatures. British Columbia’s chief coroner said that 719 “sudden and unexpected deaths” had been reported over the past week, which is triple the number expected in a typical year.

In addition, hospitals across the region were left struggling with the increased demand of people needing medical attention, due to heat-related illnesses in combination with water injuries and increased violence levels. Officials in Portland have reported that the area got more emergency department and urgent care visits in a single weekend than it would usually see in an entire summer. 

Climate scientists have warned that climate change will make these extreme heat waves more common everywhere, and that all societies need to prepare for extreme weather events. One of the world’s leading climate scientists, Michael E Mann, said, “Climate models are actually underestimating the impact that climate change is having on events like the unprecedented heatwave we are witnessing out west right now.” U.S. president Joe Biden and Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau have joined scientists in blaming the climate crisis for the heatwave.

While the worst of this heat dome has hit, high temperatures are still expected to continue over the next week, increasing the risk of more deaths, illnesses, and forest fires.

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Children Displaced Due to Climate Change: UNICEF UK Call for Action From UK Government

brown wooden bench on mountainside at daytime

4 August 2021 – by Evelyn Workman

A report, Futures at Risk: Protecting the Rights of Children on the Move in a Changing Climate, released by the UK Committee for UNICEF (UNICEF UK), analyses how climate-change related migration impacts children’s access to education and health care. There were 30.1 million new internal displacements caused by extreme weather related events in 2020, 9.8 million of these were of children. The report notes that this equates to 26,900 new weather related child displacements every day. 

Ahead of the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26), taking place in Glasgow in November, UNICEF UK has called on the UK government to support children who have been forced to leave their homes due to climate change. In the report, they propose the government establish a technical facility, to be launched at COP26, bringing together experts across health, education, migration, and climate sectors to share knowledge and propose solutions to tackle this problem.

The report provides several recommendations for the UK government to better support and protect children displaced by climate-change related events. These include using the UK’s role as an international donor to champion the rights of children affected by climate change-related displacement, and meeting its commitment to achieve net zero emissions by 2050 and encouraging other high-income countries to make a similar pledge at COP26.

“The UK Government must use the opportunity of its COP26 Presidency this year to champion the rights of children on the move, galvanising widespread and ambitious action to address the challenges we know are coming,” Joanna Rea, Director of Advocacy at UNICEF UK, said, “If not, the futures of millions of children will be at risk.”

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Australian Court Ruled the Government Has ‘Duty of Care’ to Protect Young People From Climate Crisis

aerial view of rock cliffs under cloudy sky

3 August 2021 – by Evelyn Workman

In June 2021, the Australian Federal Court has ruled that the environment minister Sussan Ley has a duty of care to protect young people from the impacts of climate change. A group of young Australians had sought an injunction to prevent Ley from approving a possible Whitehaven coal mine extension project in the state of New South Wales. The young people argued that the minister had a common duty of care to protect young people from the harm caused by climate change, and that approval of the project would breach this by endangering their future.

Judge Mordecai Bromberg ruled that Ley owes a duty of care to Australia’s young people not to cause them physical harm from future climate change. However, he did not grant the injunction because he had “not been satisfied that a reasonable apprehension of breach of the duty of care by the minister has been established”. This means that Ley does not have to prohibit the coal mine extension project, however, her responsibility to young people has now been formally recognised in court.

The court heard the expansion of the mine could lead to an extra 100m tonnes of CO2 being released into the atmosphere, which will only contribute towards an accelerated rate of global warming. The court was also presented with scientific evidence from bodies such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the Bureau of Meteorology highlighting the potential harm Australian children could face in the future due to climate change. One million of today’s children in Australia are expected to suffer a heat-stress episode requiring hospitalisation within their lifetimes, substantial economic losses will be experienced, and the Great Barrier Reef and most of Australia’s eastern eucalypt forests will not exist when today’s children grow up. 

The group of young people who brought the case to court was led by 16-year-old Melbourne student Anj Sharma and supported by Sister Brigid Arthur, an 86-year-old nun who was appointed to be their litigation guardian. One member of the group, 17-year-old Ava Princi said, “I am thrilled because this is a landmark decision. My future and the future of all young people depends on Australia stepping away from fossil fuel projects and joining the world in taking decisive climate action.” Even though the injunction was not granted, Princi said, “it is not over yet”.

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EPA Delivers on Biden’s Promise of Environmental Justice

tree trunk

26 July 2021 – by Ben St. Laurent

Less than a month after his inauguration President Biden signed an executive order — “Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad” which strengthened the inter-agency integration on climate and environmental policy. A key component of this ‘whole of government’ approach to climate change was to address disproportionate environmental impacts to economically disadvantaged and minority communities. On June 25th the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the allocation of $50 million under the American Rescue Plan to fund environmental justice initiatives, fulfilling President Biden’s commitment to address the racial and socio-economic disparities of environmental hazards. 

Alongside The EPA’s $50 million grant for environmental justice, EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan announced $200,000 in federal grant funding for a job training initiative in Baltimore, Maryland which prepares young adults for jobs in the water treatment industry. The recipient, YH2O, is a city-sponsored initiative that combines aspects of economic, environmental, and social development and could provide a rubric for environmental justice initiatives in other underserved communities. According to the EPA, 13 other environmental justice projects around the country have been awarded a combined $2.8 million in grants, and nearly $14 million has been allocated for future projects. The EPA has also set aside just over $5 million to “expand civil and criminal enforcement” of air and drinking water pollution near low-income communities. 

Cities like Flint, Michigan with high levels of poverty and pollution stand to benefit from such programs. In 2014, insufficient oversight and monitoring led to at least a dozen deaths and thousands of cases of serious health problems after the city’s drinking supply was severely contaminated with lead and bacteria. Due to weak law enforcement and legal recourse, residents of Flint who struggled for years to gain access to safe drinking water, are still fighting for justice. Increased public understanding and environmental literacy combined with stronger legal enforcement of monitoring standards, which the EPA is now funding, could prevent similar disasters from occurring. The EPA’s announcement of funding for environmental justice initiatives, and the apparent scope of its impact, should raise the bar for environmental protection and social development of historically underserved communities across the country.

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Violence Against Women and Girls in the Aftermath of Climate Disasters

gray concrete road between brown trees under blue sky during daytime

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.

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Record Number of People Internally Displaced Due to Extreme Weather Events in 2020

ocean wave

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.”

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Sustainable Climate Migration Strategy Could Bolster Global Agricultural Production

selective focus photo of wheat field

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.