IASC Weekly (GVA): 1. New evidence - Current impact of climate change and its implications for humanitarian space
Geneva
If you wish to participate in this meeting, but do not have a badge that would allow access to the Palais des Nations, please inform the IASC Secretariat by sending us an email including your name and organization by noon, Tuesday, 12 March 2013 (hofmann@un.org). In order to facilitate the process at the Gate, once you passed the Security Check, please go directly to the registration counters on the left or right side (not the front desk). Please let the security personnel know that you are registered as a Conference Participant for the IASC Weekly Meeting. For your convenience, please find the registration form attached to this email. Please complete this form and hand it over at the security registration counter. (The form is also available at the counter.) Please note that you will need to arrive at the Pregny Gate well ahead of time in order to pass the security checks and have the temporary pass issued.
Meeting Documents
1st Presentation
Matthew McKinnon, Head of Climate Vulnerability Initiative, DARA, and Editor of the “Climate Vulnerability Monitor” will brief on key findings of a recently issued global assessment into the current impact of climate change.
2nd Presentation
Robert Glasser, Secretary-General of CARE International and a member of the Advisory Panel of the report will discuss its implications for the humanitarian space today.
Background
Linking climate change or global warming to current events has long been considered unconventional. But new heat records are now broken almost every year and other abnormalities are fast accumulating: last October’s Hurricane Sandy for instance was the largest storm ever recorded in the Atlantic. These inconsistencies are making it easier for scientists to pin effects happening now on climate change. Few groups however have studied the full implications of an already changed climate in humanitarian and development terms. The “Climate Vulnerability Monitor” teases these implications out of leading research with startling conclusions, such as attributing 20% of the damage caused by today’s flood emergencies to climate change. Its analysis of 24 sectors of impact and findings from field research in Africa and Asia help to explain how the shift to inhospitable climate conditions could already be a critical factor driving the erosion of rural livelihoods and fueling migration, risk and food emergencies in regions like the Sahel. Just as this research explores unchartered territories, what it means for the humanitarian community is only beginning to become clear. Independent even of the causes of climate change, the bottom line of much of today’s climate science is serious growing shockwaves for the humanitarian space.