IPCC_Managing Risks of Extreme Events.pdf - Climate Access

Chapter 8Toward a Sustainable and Resilient FutureIssues of equity, justice, and compensation are emerging in climatechange adaptation, but few have begun to deal with questions of liabilityfor disaster risk production beyond the local scale (Kent, 2001; Mitchell,2001; Wisner, 2001; O’Brien et al., 2010b). It seems that efforts to assignresponsibility will emerge as an issue for both governments and courtsat a range of scales (Farber, 2007).8.4.3. Potential Implications for Human SecurityChanges in extreme climate and weather events threaten human security,and both disaster risk management and climate change adaptationrepresent strategies that can improve human security while also avoidingdisasters. Human security addresses the combined but related challengesof upholding human rights, meeting basic human needs, and reducingsocial and environmental vulnerability (UNDP, 1994; Sen, 2003; Bogardiand Brauch, 2005; Brauch 2005a,b, 2009; Fuentes and Brauch, 2009). Italso emphasizes equity, ethics, and reflexivity in decisionmaking and acritical questioning and contestation of the drivers of climate change(O’Brien et al., 2010b) and local impacts (Pelling, 2010a). Human securityis realized through the capacity of individuals and communities to respondto threats to their environmental, social, and human rights (GECHS, 2000;Barnett et al., 2010). A number of studies have assessed the relationshipbetween climate change and human security, demonstrating that thelinkages are often both complex and context-dependent (Barnett, 2003;Barnett and Adger, 2007; Brauch et al., 2008, 2009, 2011; Buhaug et al.,2008; O’Brien et al., 2010a). Among the most likely human securitythreats are impacts felt through damage to health, food, water, or soilconditions (Oswald Spring, 2009a, 2011b).Among the most widely discussed humanitarian and human securityissues related to climate change are the possibilities of increased migrationand/or violent conflict resulting from the biophysical or ecologicaldisruptions associated with climate change (Reuveny, 2007; O’Brien etal., 2008; Raleigh et al., 2008; Warner et al., 2010). There are indicationsthat migration conditions followed disasters in the distant past, as wellas in current situations (see, e.g., Le Roy Ladurie, 1971; Kinzig et al.,2006; Peeples et al., 2006). Migration is a key coping mechanism forpoor rural households, not only in extreme circumstances (e.g., during aprolonged drought, as with the 20th-century US Dustbowl period andSahelian droughts) but also as a means of diversifying and increasingincome (Harrington et al., 2009; Oswald Spring, 2011a; Scheffran, 2011).The opportunities that population movement opens for risk reduction areseen in international remittance flows from richer to poorer countries.These are estimated to have exceeded US$ 318 billion in 2007, of whichdeveloping countries received US$ 240 billion (World Bank, 2008).Disasters linked to extreme events often lead to forced displacement ofpeople, as well as provoke voluntary migration among the less poor. Therelationship between climate risk and displacement is a complex oneand there are numerous factors that affect migration (UNDP, 2009).Nonetheless, recent research suggests that adverse environmentalimpacts associated with climate change have the potential to triggerdisplacement of an increased number of people (Kolmannskog, 2008;Feng et al., 2010). Studies suggest that most migration will take placeinternally within individual countries; that in most cases when climaticextremes occur in developing countries they will not lead to net outmigrationbecause people tend to return to re-establish their lives aftera disaster; and that while long-term environmental changes may causemore permanent migration this will also tend to be internal (Piguet,2008; UNDP, 2009). More negatively, forced land abandonment isstressful for migrants whose culture and sense of identity are affected(Mortreux and Barnett, 2009; Brauch and Oswald Spring, 2011). Thesocial dislocation provoked by migration can lead to a breakdown intraditional rural institutions and associated coping mechanisms, forexample, in the erosion of traditional community-based water managementcommittees in central and west Asia (Birkenholtz, 2008). Local collectivecoping and adaptive capacity can also be limited by increases in thenumber of female-headed households as men migrate (Oswald Spring,1991, 2009a).Attention has been mainly focused on population displacement associatedwith large disasters. Pakistan’s 2010 floods have to date left an estimated6 million people in need of shelter; India’s 2008 floods also uprootedroughly 6 million people; Hurricane Katrina displaced more than half amillion people in the United States; and Cyclone Nargis uprooted800,000 people in Myanmar and South Asia. However, the compoundeffect of smaller, more frequent events can also contribute to displacement.Hazards such as floods, although often causing relatively low mortality,destroy many houses and hence cause considerable displacement.Between 1970 and 2009 in Colombia, for example, 24 disaster lossreports detailed floods that killed fewer than 10 people but destroyedmore than 500 houses. In total, around 26,500 houses were destroyed,potentially displacing more than 130,000 people. In the Indian state ofOrissa, 265 floods with similar low mortality rates destroyed more thanhalf a million houses. It is estimated that such extensive disastersaccount for an additional 19% displacement of people who are typicallyless visible than those displaced in larger events that attract internationalmedia and humanitarian assistance (UNISDR, 2011).Despite the opportunities to enhance development, disaster response isoften better at meeting basic needs than securing or extending humanrights. Indeed, the political neutrality that underpins the humanitarianimperative makes any overt actions to promote human rights byhumanitarian actors difficult. In this way, disaster response andreconstruction can to only a partial extent claim to enhance humansecurity (Pelling and Dill, 2009). Work at the boundaries betweenhumanitarian and development actors, new partnerships, the involvementof government, and meaningful local participation are all emerging as waysto resolve this challenge. One successful case has been the reconstructionprocess in Aceh, Indonesia, following the Indian Ocean tsunami, wherecollaboration between government and local political interests facilitatedby international humanitarian actions on the ground and through politicallevelpeace-building efforts have increased rights locally, containedarmed conflict, and provided an economic recovery plan (Le Billon andWaizenegger, 2007; Gaillard et al., 2008; Törnquist et al., 2010).457