An Editorial by Achim
Steiner, UNEP Executive Director
This article first appeared in the Guardian
on 11 May 2011
Research says millions are displaced annually
as a result of climate disasters. We must
take the precautionary approach
Imagine if the world acted only when 100%
scientific proof was in place.
We would still be insulating buildings with
cancer-causing asbestos and fuelling cars
with lead additives, damaging babies' brains.
The circulation in fridges would also be
done by chemicals that, by thinning the
Earth's protective ozone layer, would probably
have led to a sharp increase in cases of
skin cancer worldwide.
But this is not happening.
In those cases, governments assessed the
emerging science, consulted on the risks
and accepted that the evidence outweighed
the uncertainties.
Internationally, it
is called the precautionary approach: you
and I might call it acting responsibly,
prudently or just being smart.
Climate change perhaps
triggers some of the most polarised debate
between precaution and those who say that
without scientific perfection it is all
just hot air.
This has re-surfaced
in recent weeks over the issue of climate
change and migration.
It has been sparked
by a map, produced by a UNEP-collaborating
centre in Norway, overlapping vulnerable
areas of the globe and forecasts of climate
impacts.
The map was linked to
scientific projections, made in 2005, suggesting
there might be 50 million "climate
refugees" by 2010.
Presenting complex data
is a challenge for any public or private
institution - in respect of migration, rising
populations, unsustainable use of resources,
poverty and civil war all contribute to
vulnerability in the face of natural and
weather-related disasters.
The science has moved
on since 2005, as has the debate at about
how best to classify people affected by
natural hazards, either temporarily or permanently
and within or across national borders.
Looked at today, the
map over-simplifies the message, which is
why we asked for it to be removed.
Yet the question remains
- are there people being displaced by climate
change, and what of the future?
These are questions
that are likely to be high on nations' minds
when the UN Security Council debates climate
change and security in July to review a
growing body of informed opinion and evidence.
In 2008 analysts for
the Pentagon in the US concluded that extreme
weather events linked with climate change
could lead to mass migration in some parts
of the world.
This year the International
Institute for Strategic Studies in the UK
stated: "In areas with weak or brittle
states, climate change will increase the
risks of resource shortages, mass migrations
and civil conflict."
Some attempts, such
as the 2005 estimate, have also been trying
to put possible numbers on the likely numbers
displaced.
The UN Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
and the Internal Displacement Monitoring
Centre (IDMC) looked at the data for 2008.
The data suggests that
at least 36 million people were displaced
by "sudden-onset natural disasters",
of whom more than 20 million were displaced
owing to the sudden onset of weather-related
disasters, including about 6.5 million people
because of floods in India.
"Research from
other sources suggests that many millions
of people are also displaced annually as
a result of slow-onset climate-related disasters
such as drought," it adds.
Munich Re, the re-insurance
company, recently concluded that in 2010
"The high number of weather-related
natural catastrophes and record temperatures,
both globally and in different regions of
the world, provide further indications of
advancing climate change."
The company mentions
the floods in Pakistan, where about a million
people were displaced.
We could say with greater
certainty that many victims of rising greenhouse
gas emissions were already with us, if only
the existing science was able to disentangle
the climate signature from the other complexities
and challenges many people across the world
increasingly face.
The question we must
continuously ask ourselves in the face of
scientific complexity and uncertainty, but
also growing evidence of climate change,
is at what point precaution, common sense
or prudent risk management demands action.
The role of institutions
such as the United Nations Environment Programme
(UNEP) is to continuously review emerging
science, subject it to careful peer review
and ensure that it is available to public
policymakers and, indeed, the public.
To declare a phenomenon
such as climate change non-existent until
we have unravelled all aspects of atmospheric
science and impacts on the biosphere and
on human beings would be reckless and irresponsible.
Although reviewing science
is an integral part of knowledge generation,
we should not allow the critique to paralyse
emerging science on climate change from
reaching society - especially when the lives
and livelihoods of considerable numbers
of people are at risk.
