Current warming trajectory will lead to humanitarian crisis: UNOCHA Report
The policy director of the UN agency that coordinates international humanitarian relief efforts called for ‘transformational shifts’ in thinking and action at the climate summit in Glasgow
Between 2000 and 2019, over 7,000 disasters were recorded worldwide, an 83% rise on the previous two decades. There was a 134% increase in the number of floods and a 232% rise in extreme temperature events. The number of people affected increased by 21% and the economic costs rose 82%. As far back as 2012, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said that climate change was making disasters more frequent and more intense.
“In a world that is currently 1.2 degrees Celsius warmer, humanitarian workers are struggling to keep pace with the rising number of climate-related disasters and the dramatic rise in humanitarian needs,” said Hansjoerg Strohmeyer, policy director of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), speaking at the UN climate summit COP26 in Glasgow last month.
He added: “A 1.5C temperature increase would test the current humanitarian system to its limits. A rise of 2.7C, our current trajectory, or beyond would lead to a runaway global humanitarian crisis, the sheer magnitude of which would seriously threaten the system’s collapse.” In the 15 countries most vulnerable and least ready to adapt to the climate crisis according to a ranking by the University of Notre Dame, the numbers of both climate-related disasters and affected people increased by over 100% in the first two decades of this millennium compared to the previous two decades. In 2020, disasters triggered more than 30.7 million new recorded internal displacements, 98% of which resulted from climate-related events, Strohmeyer said. The risk of disaster-related displacement has quadrupled since the 1970s, and climate shocks caused an estimated average of 23.1 million displacements every year between 2010 to 2019, according to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre. Extreme weather was one of the three main drivers of acute food insecurity, alongside conflict/insecurity and economic shocks in 2020. It drove hunger in 15.7 million people in 15 countries, according to the World Food Programme. A 2C rise in global average temperature would tip 189 million additional people into food crisis. In a 4C scenario, that number would reach 1.8 billion.
He added: “A 1.5C temperature increase would test the current humanitarian system to its limits. A rise of 2.7C, our current trajectory, or beyond would lead to a runaway global humanitarian crisis, the sheer magnitude of which would seriously threaten the system’s collapse.” In the 15 countries most vulnerable and least ready to adapt to the climate crisis according to a ranking by the University of Notre Dame, the numbers of both climate-related disasters and affected people increased by over 100% in the first two decades of this millennium compared to the previous two decades. In 2020, disasters triggered more than 30.7 million new recorded internal displacements, 98% of which resulted from climate-related events, Strohmeyer said. The risk of disaster-related displacement has quadrupled since the 1970s, and climate shocks caused an estimated average of 23.1 million displacements every year between 2010 to 2019, according to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre. Extreme weather was one of the three main drivers of acute food insecurity, alongside conflict/insecurity and economic shocks in 2020. It drove hunger in 15.7 million people in 15 countries, according to the World Food Programme. A 2C rise in global average temperature would tip 189 million additional people into food crisis. In a 4C scenario, that number would reach 1.8 billion.
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