The economic price of climate-driven storms, floods, heat waves and droughts $16 million an hour

Photo: Jitendra Bajracharya / ICIMOD

Parvez Babul

The economic price of climate-driven storms, floods, heat waves and droughts has been calculated for the first time and found to have already, over the course of the last two decades, cost humanity, collectively, $16 million an hour. Two-thirds of the costs were due to loss of life. The rest is to property and other assets. Dr. Pema Gyamtsho, Director General of Nepal-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), a unique intergovernmental institution shared the message recently, titled: “Early Warning for All cannot come soon enough for the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) region.”

Pema added, “These are not mere statistics to the Hindu Kush Himalaya. Already, across our region this year, families have borne unbearable losses due to climate disasters. Hundreds of lives have been lost. Many more have been turned upside down as homes, crops, possessions have been lost in devastating floods and landslides. Most recently, last week’s flood of the Teesta River in Sikkim caused by a glacial lake outburst served as a stark reminder that nature’s fury knows no bounds.”

 EARLY WARNING SYSTEM

Different researches show that an early warning system is a set of infrastructure and capacities needed to generate and disseminate timely meaningful information of the possible extreme events or disasters (floods, drought, fire, earthquake, tsunamis) that threatens people’s lives and properties. Early warning systems for preventing losses due to floods and other disasters through national, regional and international cooperation with all the stakeholders engagement must be ensured.

Every year most of the countries are facing different types of disasters at an increased rate, and claiming uncountable and irreparable loss of lives and livelihoods due to human -induced climate change. Considering all those pressing issues, ensuring effective early warning systems are the prerequisite to tackle climate change and fighting disasters nationally, regionally, and globally as well.

CLIMATE-VULNERABILITIES IN HINDU KUSH HIMALAYAN REGION

Climate scientists observed that Hindu Kush Himalayan (HKH) region extends 3,500 km over all or part of eight countries from Afghanistan in the west to Myanmar in the east. It is the source of ten large Asian river systems that provides water, ecosystem services. The basins of these rivers provide water to around two billion people, a fourth of the world’s population.

Hills and mountains, particularly the HKH mountain system, have always constituted places where adaptation, mitigation, and resilience are hallmarks of the people. The Hindu Kush Himalaya is arguably the world’s most important ‘water tower’, being the largest volume of ice and snow outside of the Arctic and Antarctica. Together the rivers support the drinking water, irrigation, energy, industry and sanitation needs of the people living in the mountains and downstream. South Asia, with a growing population of 1.6 billion people, South Asia hosts 40 per cent of the world’s poor and malnourished on just 2.4 per cent of its land.

Dr. Pema Gyamtsho further said, “This year’s International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction falls as families, scientists and policymakers across our region take stock of the heavy human and economic costs of this monsoon and rising global temperatures.  Climate-driven disasters are set to soar. The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction anticipates we’ll see 560 disasters annually by 2030, pushing an additional 37.6 million people into extreme poverty.”

Pema mentioned that ICIMOD will be advocating for both globally. It will also be working across the region to build out a culture of data-sharing around disaster preparedness and response; to educate policymakers of gaps and key areas for action; to equip communities with innovative and accessible technologies and to scale out community-based flood early warning systems. HKH region shows the huge inequality there is in terms of exposure to hazards worldwide. The research reveals too that women and vulnerable groups are disproportionately affected when a crisis hits. ICIMOD pledges to fight this inequality by mobilizing the tools, knowledge and funds to ensure people in this region are resilient to future shocks, placing women and vulnerable group at the heart of our strategies. Early warning for all cannot come fast enough for the countries of the Hindu Kush Himalayan region.

Regarding the required fund, Pema has given emphasize on the ambition to make early warning for all a reality for those communities exposed; and he said,  “We badly need donors to recognize the extent of our exposure to risk in this region: both in terms of numbers and scale of hazards, but also in terms of the population size impacted. We urgently need the Adaptation Fund, the Green Climate Fund and the Children’s Investment Finance Fund to release funds ever faster to this region; and for compensation mechanisms to be operationalized.”

Experts observed that ensuring effective early warning systems for fighting disasters in South Asian, and Hindu Kush Himalayan (HKH) countries–we have to perfectly engage all the stakeholders together as disasters are transboundary and regional issues. Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan and Maldives are the eight South Asian countries. The eight Hindu Kush Himalayan (HKH) countries are: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Myanmar, Nepal, and Pakistan.