The Interconnected Disaster Risks report analyzes 10 disasters that occurred in 2021 and 2022 from around the world, primarily to identify their causes and find ways to prevent similar disasters in the future. Disasters include a heatwave in British Columbia, an earthquake in Haiti, Hurricane Ida, floods in Lagos, fires in the Mediterranean, food insecurity in Southern Madagascar, a drought in Taiwan, the eruption of the Tonga Volcano, the disappearance of the Vaquita, and wandering elephants.
“The report wants to show people how disasters around the world are linked,” Dr. Jack O’Connor, senior expert at the United Nations University Institute for Environment and Human Security is the lead author of the report, told FairPlanet. The report argues that there are direct links between the causes of various disasters throughout the region.
“For Lagos, there are some connections with other cases in the report that we highlighted, [such as the] cities that are not prepared for climate extremes and infrastructure that is vulnerable,” Dr. O’Connor said.
“This is what happened in New York City as well. New York is not immune and the infrastructure in New York is not ready either. So there is a connection to the unprepared infrastructure.”
The frequency of extreme weather events due to known human activity is increasing the number of disasters worldwide. For example, natural disasters increased from 39 incidents in 1960 to 396 in 2019 and 25 million people were displaced in 2019 alone, with flooding identified as the most common ecological threat, according to a 2020 ecological threat register.
The impact of these disasters is enormous. According to the Interconnected Disaster Risk report, disasters last year alone took about 10,000 lives and cost more than $280 billion in damages worldwide.
‘Connected solutions’
The authors of the report argue that the proposed solutions and interventions should take into account the many forms of disasters and address their interrelated causes.
Emphasizing this point, Dr. O’Connor cited the example of New York City and Lagos, both of which are facing infrastructure problems.
“If both areas are struggling with heavy rains [and] if you can address the cause of urbanization and ecosystem loss, and design green infrastructure and ecosystem restoration to bring nature back into the equation,” he said, “these can be tools to help cities cope the heavy rain.”
O’Connor added that embedding environmental processes into solutions can contribute significantly to reducing risks and disasters around the world.
According to the report, “solutions to allow nature to act include prescribed burning to prevent megafires (Mediterranean wildfires), restoration of forest ecosystems to stabilize soil and prevent soil degradation ( Earthquake in Haiti, drought in Taiwan, food insecurity in Southern Madagascar), or changing urban streams and rivers and applying risk-informed urban planning to reduce flood risk (Hurricane Ida).”
‘The government is not interested’
The report also advocates a strong early warning system that can prevent or reduce various disaster risks, arguing that such an improved system could reduce the number of deaths from disasters that hit the world last year. .
But such a system by itself may not be enough in some countries. In Nigeria, for example, an early warning system is not enough without proper planning and action from the government, Charles Oyibo, an environmental scientist and lecturer at Niger Delta University in Wilberforce Island, told FairPlanet .
Oyibo pointed out that in a city like Lagos, where people come from rural areas in the hope of accessing better economic opportunities, an early warning system is not enough to reduce the effects of the disaster, and should be used in conjunction with practical measures and plans for those in flood-prone areas.
“Every other solution recommended [in the report] is ideal and appropriate, except for early warning,” he said. “Early warning is there, but what do people do? Even if you warn people, the [Nigerian] the economy is already based and people can barely eat.”
“When you are displaced, it is a crisis situation for you rather than normal,” Oyibo added. “There are no relief centers where people can go and the government is not involved. [government] send relief materials to the same community knowing that the community has been evacuated. That is why the government is not interested in temporarily relocating people. [Whether] you warn or you don’t warn, I don’t see the difference.”
Meanwhile, Dr. O’Connor maintains that the Nigerian government cannot claim to be unprepared, as flooding is a recurring problem in Lagos. He stressed that designing and implementing solutions will prevent future flooding.
“Lagos is not prepared for extreme climate,” he said.
“Lagos receives flooding every year and actions to take care of it may not be as advanced as they should be. [and] it’s getting worse. But it’s better to prepare for that sooner rather than later. ”
‘Not just Lagos’
The report further states that hazards, such as typhoons and earthquakes, do not necessarily become disasters. This is because people’s location, lifestyle and ability to respond will determine whether a hazard becomes a disaster or not.
For example, the report says that although New York has faced devastating hurricanes in the past, Hurricane Ida was different. The storm brought torrential rain, leading to severe flooding that caught New York’s aging urban infrastructure unprepared.
The disaster resulted in a total of 95 recorded deaths in the United States, and eleven of the 13 New York City deaths from flash flooding occurred in illegal basement apartments where most were undocumented immigrants. live (in lieu of safer options).
This inequality of opportunity, the report argues, drives people’s vulnerability to risks. Before a disaster strikes, vulnerable people have few options to manage their risk, and often prioritize meeting their basic needs over disaster risk reduction efforts.
“In terms of population, it goes back to the root cause of inequality,” said Dr. O’Connor. “Not only Lagos, but big cities all over the world are growing in population, because people from outside are moving there with hope for a better life because the rural areas do not offer much opportunities for livelihoods, and they too have been hit hard by the effects of climate change.”
“If you want to meet the growing population,” he added, “you have to find ways to improve the situation of people outside the city so that they [are not] mainly motivated to move to the cities. You still have people moving, but you make sure they move in a safe way.”
Reflecting on the report, Dr. O’Connor says that last year’s disasters could have been prevented, or at least their effects could have been reduced if the right kind of solutions had been implemented.
For him, the way out of this predicament is simple: “put all the solutions in a package and remove everything from the room.”
Photo by Kelly Sikkema.