Red Cross urges focus on humanitarian impacts of climate change
The Red Cross on Wednesday urged leaders heading to the United Nations climate conference in Turkey to rapidly scale up investment in protecting vulnerable populations against humanitarian impacts brought by a warming planet.
The International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) pointed out that climate change was spurring extreme heat, floods, droughts and storms that are "threatening lives, livelihoods and health".
And with this year's exceptionally strong El Nino expected to bring further extreme weather, it warned that investment in preparedness and adaptation was "increasingly critical".
IFRC highlighted the recent devastating floods in Nepal as a demonstration of the humanitarian risks, but also of how investment in preparedness can save lives.
The principle who evacuated his school, which lay in the path of the flash flood, and ushered hundreds of students to higher ground and safety, had received disaster preparedness training from the Nepal Red Cross years earlier, it pointed out.
"The experience in Nepal shows what is possible when communities have the knowledge and resources to act before disaster strikes," IFRC Secretary-General Jagan Chapagain said in the statement.
"But far too many communities still lack the support they need to prepare for increasingly severe climate risks," he said.
IFRC urged governments to put health at the center of their national climate adaptation plans, and to fulfil commitments made last year to triple adaptation finance by 2035.
The organization also called for governments to invest more in community preparedness, anticipatory action and pre-arranged financing.
"At a time when budgets are under pressure, investing in preparedness is not only the right thing to do. It can also significantly reduce the costs of responding to disasters after they strike," Chapagain said.
Source: Agence France Presse
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