Climate-driven humanitarian disasters are demonstrating why resilience and adaptation must become a high priority alongside climate-change mitigation. This reformulation of priorities will have far-reaching implications for the humanitarian sector.
NEW YORK – This year has been marked by horrendous humanitarian crises in eastern Africa and Afghanistan and terrifying climate-driven events around the world. But these issues are rarely discussed together because each is subject to different United Nations processes, different government departments, and different advocacy campaigns.
This must change. The fate of the climate and of the world’s poorest people are connected, and the movements dedicated to helping people who are most vulnerable and those called to protect the planet need to work better together – starting immediately.
The heatwaves, wildfires, and flash floods that swept across many Western countries this summer gave the world’s richest populations a taste of what it means to live at the mercy of nature. In the poorest countries, which have done the least to contribute to the climate crisis, that reality is already a part of daily life.
NEW YORK – This year has been marked by horrendous humanitarian crises in eastern Africa and Afghanistan and terrifying climate-driven events around the world. But these issues are rarely discussed together because each is subject to different United Nations processes, different government departments, and different advocacy campaigns.
This must change. The fate of the climate and of the world’s poorest people are connected, and the movements dedicated to helping people who are most vulnerable and those called to protect the planet need to work better together – starting immediately.
The heatwaves, wildfires, and flash floods that swept across many Western countries this summer gave the world’s richest populations a taste of what it means to live at the mercy of nature. In the poorest countries, which have done the least to contribute to the climate crisis, that reality is already a part of daily life.