Climate and crisis – what do we need to know to improve response to the unknown future?
Climate change is already having profound effects on the location, scale and nature of crises requiring humanitarian interventions: effects that will increase significantly (although at an unpredictable rate) over the next 10-20years. In particular, the world will see: increased flooding in urban areas; multiplication of droughts inducing widespread regional food insecurity; cyclones of increased intensity and frequency, taking abnormal trajectories; wildfires of increased scale; heatwaves; and an increased number of public health emergencies. While it is harder to predict human behaviour in the face of environmental changes, it is also extremely possible that these conditions will lead to significantly increased levels of conflict and human migration.
Given the range of crises influenced by climate change and the difficulty of predicting its future effects, it is challenging for humanitarian actors learn from previous crisis responses and understand what lessons remain relevant for the new scale and type of disasters faced.
The session to be held on April 27, 2021 on Zoom from 13:00 to 14:00 (11:00-12:00 UTC) will focus on the climate crisis from the perspective of evidence. It will explore two main questions:
1. What can we know about unprecedented events? How can we collect useful evidence on things that haven’t happened?
2. What is the scope of the climate impact on humanitarian action? What do we need to know to understand the full breadth of a topic that ‘changes everything’?
Session facilitated by ALNAP, Groupe URD, All India Disaster Management Initiative, and the Climate and Humanitarian Crisis Initiative.
