Climate change is one of the greatest threats to sustainable development, with adverse impacts expected on the environment, economic activity, human health, food security, physical infrastructure, and natural resources. The relationship between climate change (CC), natural disasters, and human security are crucial. Climate change can potentially affect mostly the following sectors in Human security: food and health security threats, challenging mitigation and adaptation techniques of communities, food-fuel conflicts, livelihood, and economic insecurity, freshwater scarcity, environmental degradation, and increased IDPs due to extreme climatic conditions.
Climate change is nowadays called a ‘security’ problem, and there are chances that CC may increase the risk of violent conflicts in the future. The concept of vulnerability is one of the key and common concepts for climate change, human security, and disaster management. Human security focuses on analyzing vulnerable people, effects of actions by local people in a particular place and condition on vulnerability, and probable actions to reduce or mitigate the vulnerability.
Climate change can be described as both a complex and protracted hazard and as such does not sit comfortably in either of the current response regimes outlined earlier. It is a natural phenomenon but one that is caused by anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases. Climate change is a multidimensional (from local to global) and multifaceted (from drought to flood) hazard that has short, medium, and long-term aspects. Citizen movements in response to climate change may also result in new exposure to various hazards. Climate-displaced persons may suffer complex emergencies and distress as they flee from their own localities in search of livelihood opportunities. Moreover, climate change can increase vulnerability to unrelated, non-climatic hazards and human insecurities (Geoff. et al, 2006).
Climate change is happening, and the impacts of it are being seen in different forms of natural hazards and catastrophes, that are impacting the lives and livelihoods of the people and communities around the globe. Our mother planet Earth is observing the significant change in rainfall pattern and cyclone path, resulting in unprecedented floods and affecting agriculture, aquaculture, and animal husbandry that are the major livelihoods for the rural communities and thus threaten human security (Shaw, 2006).
Many studies such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2007) predict an intensification of CC for the upcoming years. Thus, CC has taken an essential place in world governance. The relationship between climate change, natural disasters, and human security are crucial and complex. Most of the countries need to manage the increasingly complicated issues of additional Internally Displaced People (IDPs) and migratory flows caused by CC-induced human security risks and environmental degradation. Some of the major emerging threats in human security, induced due to CC are discussed below.
● Food security threats: Food production will decline due to climatic hazards and anomalies resulting in food crises. The hunger and starvation across the world will rise and famines will be more frequent due to food insecurity. Bangladesh is already having a huge population to feed. The security also depends on the access and affordability of foods. The continuous price hike of food items and essential commodities are taking a huge toll on the lives of the general mass.
● Health security threats: Pandemic like this Covid-19 will be more as the health insecurity will rise due to climate change. The whole world suffered due to the pandemic it showcase the vulnerability of the health sector. Cc will melt the permafrost and the deadly virus will be unearthed, the ice melts in the arctic region is already doing so.
● Mitigation and adaptation challenges: Due to drastic changes in weather and climate, the mitigation and adaptation techniques of the communities will be challenged too. Their coping capacity will be tested every now and then. Their adaptation strategy needs to be revised too. For instance, the floating garden in Bangladesh is a great adaptation technique but the floods destroy this too every year. The locally-led adaptation (LLA) has gained momentum in the international arena. And this LLA needs to be incorporated to tackles CC in our country too.
● Food-fuel conflicts: Non-renewable fossil fuels are the drivers of CC as the Green House Gases (GHG) increases due to burning to it. Renewable sources of energy like wind and solar power need to be more cost-effective and affordable. The use of biofuel needs to be reduced too as it triggers deforestation too.
● Livelihood and economic insecurity: Due to CC many will lose farmlands and crop cultivation will be less. River fishing and sea fishing are declining too due to the adverse effects of CC.
● Freshwater scarcity: Due to salinity intrusion there is a scarcity of freshwater. It will increase more in the future if the sea level keeps rising. For instance, in the southern coastal areas of Bangladesh particularly in the Khulna and Barishal division, scarcity of fresh water is already a major problem. The ground water is saline which hinders crop production. As a result, coastal people are suffering from various skin diseases too.
● Environmental degradation: The environment is degrading as pollution is rising. Microplastic and industrial pollution is exacerbating the already fragile ecosystem adding to the adversities of CC. Worldwide endangered species are becoming extinct, as their natural habitats are being destroyed. Biodiversity conservation is a must to fight cc
● Increased IDPs: The internally displaced people have increased as the extreme climatic conditions are directly harming the lives and livelihoods of people. People are migrating from coastal areas to urban areas in search of livelihood opportunities. In Bangladesh, the slums of Dhaka are increasing due to the increased number of IDPs from the coastal areas.
● Sea Level-Displacement and Human Security: A study calculates that around 634 million people are living less than 10m above sea level. The study also notes that “of the more than 180 countries with populations in the low-elevation coastal zone, about 70 percent have urban areas of more than five million people that extend into it.” The authors then list Tokyo, Japan; New York, U.S.; Mumbai, India; Shanghai, China; Jakarta, Indonesia; and Dhaka, Bangladesh. One could add other cities as well to the list, for example, Cartagena, Colombia; Lima, Peru; Buenos Aires, Argentina; and Recife and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. African exposure is high. (Wagner, 2007)
Human security is undermined by CC in the present day and will increasingly do so in the future. It does this through the reduction of people’s access to natural resources which are vital for sustaining their livelihoods. It is also likely to undermine the capacity of states to provide the services and opportunities that help people to sustain their livelihoods, and thus help to maintain peace and security. In certain circumstances, these direct and indirect impacts of CC on state and human security may in turn increase the risk of violent conflicts. It is evident that CC possesses a risk to human insecurity principally by its negative effects on people’s well-being. For this reason, climate change is of grave concern to many people.
References:
Geoff B., Phil K., Rose J., and Wisner B., (2006) ‘Climate change and disaster management, Disasters, 30(1): 64−80, Blackwell Publishing, Oxford, UK.
Shaw R, (2006) Community-based climate change adaptation in Vietnam: inter-linkages of environment, disaster, and human security, Multiple Dimension of Global Environmental Changes, edited by S. Sonak, TERI publication, 521-547
Wagner T., (28 March 2007) “Major Cities Warned against Sea Level Rise” Independent (South Africa) Online http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=31&art_id=nw20070328024424684C606123
- The writer is a Research Associate at South Asian Institute of Policy and Governance (SIPG), North South University. He can be reached via email - [email protected]