If years of failure to check the depletion of what is arguably man`s greatest resource is finally yielding unpleasant results, it is because the toll has become much too tyrannical to ignore.
All over the world, as nature has continued to protest its abuse in varying degrees, it is some of the world`s poorest people that have been left to count the cost.
Because human existence has been long marked by inequity, inequality and injustice, as the ripple effects of climate change bite harder, those most affected are those who were already left behind, and were consequently most vulnerable to the shocks that have been known to course through human existence from time to time.
In the crosshairs of climate change
According to the World Health Organization, Climate change is impacting human lives and health in a variety of ways. It threatens the essential ingredients of good health – clean air, safe drinking water, nutritious food supply and safe shelter – and has the potential to undermine decades of progress in global health.
Between 2030 and 2050, climate change is expected to cause approximately 250,000 additional deaths per year from malnutrition, malaria, diarrhea and heat stress.
The direct damage costs to health are estimated to between US$ 2-4 billion per year by 2030. Area with weak health infrastructure-mostly in developing countries -will be the least able to cope without assistance to prepare and respond.
Greenhouse gas emissions that result from the extraction and burning of fossil fuels are major contributors to both climate change and air pollution.
Many policies and individual measures, such as transport, food and energy use choices, have potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and produce major health co-benefits, particularly by abating air pollution.
Checking climate risk
The most disturbing effect of climate change yet is that the people who bear its brunt are those who do little to contribute to it by the way they live.
They are predominantly the world`s poorest people.
The Global Climate Risk Index (CRI) from Germanwatch analyses quantified impacts of extreme weather events – both in terms of the fatalities as well as the economic losses that occur.
The 2021 Index showed that between 2000 and 2019, over 475,000 people lost their lives worldwide and losses of US$2.56 trillion were incurred as a direct result of more than 11,000 extreme weather events.
Countries most affected in 2019 were Mozambique, Zimbabwe, the Bahamas, Japan, Malawi, Islamic Republic of Japan, India, South Sudan, Niger, Bolivia. From 2000 to 2019, Puerto Rico, Myanmar and Haiti ranked as the countries most affected by extreme weather events as a result of climate change. All easily some of the world`s poorest countries.
If it is clearly the case, and it appears it is, that the worlds poorest people are most vulnerable to climate risk and disproportionately left to suffer the ravaging effects of change, it means that fighting climate change means fighting for the worlds poorest people, many of them children.
COP 27
The 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference more commonly referred to as COP27 will be the 27th United Nations Climate Change Conference and it will be held from 6th to 18th November 2022 in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt.
COP27 will enable governments to meet and accelerate global efforts to confront the climate change crisis. The meeting will be important because it has been shown that climate change is moving at a faster pace than actions to curb it, and as a result ecosystems and communities are being pushed to their limits.
It is hoped that mitigation of climate risk will be at the front burner at the conference.
Kene Obiezu,
keneobiezu@gmail.com
