Climate extremes 'not a distant threat', experts warn

Climate change will bring greater weather extremes, such as drought and flooding – and they are coming faster than expected, experts said at a London event convened by the Overseas Development Institute as part of the Building Resilience and Adaptation to Climate Extremes and Disasters (BRACED) programme.

“Climate extremes are not a distant threat anymore”, warned David Nicholson, director of environment, energy and climate for Mercy Corps. “This is becoming very real.”

But predicting those extremes remains a huge challenge, said Kirsty Lewis, climate security science manager at the UK Met Office. “Forecasting is getting better, but it will never be perfect”, she said.

Nicholson cited El Nino and recurring droughts in Ethiopia as an example.

“El Nino was well forecast in the past year. The (Ethiopian) government and civil society did a lot to prepare for it, but it still rendered 10 million more people food insecure,” he said.

Not all disasters can be anticipated and their risks reduced, said Emily Wilkinson, a research fellow at ODI, who presented findings of a recent report on Climate extremes and resilient poverty reduction.

Instead, learning to deal with variability and uncertainty is key, she said.

What needs to change? Good climate resilience isn’t so much about anticipating a climate extreme event as understanding how it will affect different communities differently, panel members said.

 “Only when we understand what resilience actually means on the ground will we reduce communities’ vulnerability to climate change”, said Nicholson.

ROLE OF GAMES

The Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre, for example, helps spur that understanding by using dice games in local communities to open up a dialogue on climate risk.

“We found that those who acted intuitively often made the best decisions in terms of probability”, explained Maarten van Aalst, director of the Climate Centre. “Climate scientists were the worst performers!”

When do climate resilient strategies work most effectively? In the immediate aftermath of disasters, said van Aalst.

“That is the time to raise awareness of risks in the face of climate change and focus accountability,” he said. Such changes can then help achieve other goals such as reducing poverty and improving health.

Despite greater understanding of it, building resilience is often easier said than done.

“Climate adaptation strategies assume largely state-led interventions”, said van Aalst. “These will not work in conflict areas, where governance systems have broken down.”

For resilience programmes to work, they must engage at all levels, laying the groundwork for scaling up of successful efforts at a national level, the experts said.

One obstacle, according to Nicholson, is that the need for quick returns on donors’ investment can be at odds with the slow process of building resilience.

Roger Harrabin, an environment analyst at the BBC and moderator of the event, concluded the event with a plea to communicate about resilience programmes in simple and jargon-free language.