Climate Crisis Leaves 2 Mill People A Week Needing Aid, Doing Nothing Would Cost $20B Yr: Red Cross
-'Climate crisis leaving 2 million people a week needing aid – Red Cross.' Charity warns of cost of doing nothing, saying contributions would need to hit $20bn a year. The Guardian, Sept. 19, 2019.
Two million people a week need humanitarian aid today because of the climate emergency, the Red Cross has warned, as extreme weather takes an “intolerable” toll in human suffering. The number of people in need of interventions will double in the next three decades – from 108 million a year today to 200 million – if governments fail to act, stretching international humanitarian relief efforts to breaking point and beyond, the global charity said.
Costs would rise too: by the end of the next decade, the current contribution of between $3.5bn and $12bn (£2.8bn to £9.6bn) a year from funders would need to rise to at least $20bn a year, to keep pace with a predicted surge in the number of people afflicted by disasters such as storms, floods, droughts and other extreme weather events. The estimates were made in a report from the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), entitled The Cost of Doing Nothing, presented to the UN on Thursday evening.
Francesco Rocca, president of the IFRC, said: “This confirms the impact that climate change is having, and will continue to have, on some of the world’s most vulnerable people. The cost of doing nothing is high, and it’s the most vulnerable who will have to pay if we don’t act. This is intolerable.” He spoke of the strain that climate-related disasters were already placing on humanitarian agencies and donors. “Globally, most humanitarian appeals are already underfunded and have been for a number of years. It doesn’t seem realistic to expect that the system will be able to accommodate such a massive increase in need,” he said. “Something needs to change.”
Yet with adequate spending, efforts to increase the resilience of vulnerable people and action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the number of people caught up in climate-related disasters could be cut drastically, the report found. Timely adaptation to the likely effects of climate change, and lower levels of global heating, would mean just 10 million people would need humanitarian aid a year because of climate-related problems in 2050, a fraction of the 100 million afflicted today.
Some of the measures needed to prevent disaster are relatively low-tech, and cheap to put in place. Early warning systems for floods and storms, and access to weather forecasts in remote regions can all improve preparedness. Restoring natural features such as mangrove swamps and wetlands can protect against coastal and river flooding, while regrowing tree cover on hillsides can prevent landslips...
Read More, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/sep/19/climate-crisis-leaving-2-million-people-a-week-needing-aid-red-cross
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(Sun Sentinel, 9/19). HOLLYWOOD, Fla. — As 85-year-old Virginia Mosvold floated in the rising ocean waters during Hurricane Dorian, helpless family members could do nothing more than watch from the rafters and prepare for the worst. But Mosvold somehow managed to cling to a refrigerator in her Bahamas home and keep her head above water — for three agonizing days. “We said goodbye to her a few times and told her we loved her,” said the woman’s daughter, Sissel Johnson. “It’s by the grace of God that she survived.”
Mosvold is now battling severe leg infections and pneumonia at Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood, Fla. Her astonishing story of survival against the odds began when Dorian’s fury battered the home and the surge lifted her off the top of the kitchen counter and into the ocean water. “It came in like a tidal wave,” Johnson, 51, said. “The water kept rising and rising.”
Johnson and her husband George broke through the drywall of the ceiling and climbed into rafters of the home in Freeport as water poured in. George tried to bring Mosvold up to the rafters in the attic with them, but couldn’t hoist up the elderly woman.“We prepared as best we could but never in a million years did we think we’d have flooding like that,” Johnson said. When the sounds of the storm silenced and the water receded enough for Sissel and George to come down safely, they placed Mosvold in a stable chair.
Without cell power or electricity, George pulled siding off the house and scribbled HELP on it when spotting Coast Guard helicopters flying above. Johnson said about two feet of water remained in her home. “We are very thankful our roof stayed on,” Johnson said. “We had pine trees and furniture floating in and out of the house with the current.”...
More, http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/dorian-victim-85-survives-after-floating-in-a-chair-for-3-days-in-rising-waters/ar-AAHyzg4?ocid=HPCOMMDHP15
Aliana Alexis of Haiti stands on the concrete slab of what is left of her home in an area called "The Mud" on the Great Abaco island town of Marsh Harbour, Bahamas, on Sept. 5.
More, Hurricane Dorian Aftermath in Bahamas, https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/gabrielsanchez/photos-hurricane-dorian-aftermath-bahamas