The world has always experienced extreme climatic or geophysical events or ‘hazards’. The ‘El Nino’ which can cause extreme weather for example is a ‘natural’ climatic phenomena. Droughts, plagues of locusts, hurricanes, cyclones and floods, have always been part of the reality of life on earth.

To what extent are such ‘natural hazards’ ‘triggered’ by human interference in nature and at what stage do their consequences become ‘disastrous?

Extreme weather related events, are increasing in frequency and intensity around the world, three times faster than non weather related sudden onset hazards such as earthquakes or volcanic activity. This trend, combined with many other ‘warning sings’, such as rising sea levels, shrinking glaciers and declining coral reefs, are clear indicators that global warming and the rate at which we have been burning fossil fuels is effecting extreme weather. There are few among the world’s scientific community who still dispute that dramatic climate change is taking place (the projected rise or speed of change in global surface temperatures in the next century is without precedent during at least the last 10,000 years) and that weather related disasters are certain to increase in frequency and severity over the next century.

Human Pressure
on Eco-systems
Not only do these extreme climatic events or ‘disasters’ driven by global warming present a widespread direct risk to human settlements but the vulnerability of poor people and poor countries to such hazards is compounded by ongoing human pressure on eco-systems and environmental degradation world wide. Many ecosystems have been stretched to the point where they are no longer resilient. Deforestation has damaged watersheds, increased the risk of fires and contributed to climate change. Coastal wetlands, dunes and mangroves, which are natures ‘shock absorbers’ for coastal storms, have been destroyed. Continued land and water degradation, unsustainable agricultural farming practices have increased the impacts of droughts in semi arid areas. These and other human induced changes to our environment have undermined a complex ecological safety net.

A recent, UN commissioned, Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Synthesis Report ‘Living Beyond our Means; Natural Assets and Human Well–Being’, (www.millenniumassessment.org) based on a four year assessment conducted by 1,300 experts from 95 countries, highlighted the fact that “humans have changed eco-systems more rapidly and more extensively in the last 50 years than in any other period” and “two thirds of the services provided by nature to humans are found to be in decline worldwide”. Decline in certain services, such as those provided by fisheries and fresh water, the report continues, are “well beyond levels that can sustain current, much less, future demands”. Meanwhile the planet is experiencing, they continue, “a substantial and largely irreversible loss in diversity of life on earth”. Species, habitats and ecosystems that have evolved over millions of years are at risk from extinction or severe disruption this century.

Such ongoing degradation of ecological services, combined with the inevitable consequences of climate change – particularly for developing countries – makes any hope of achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) increasingly unrealistic: “any progress achieved in addressing the goals of poverty and hunger eradication, improved health, and environmental protection is unlikely to be sustained if most of the ecosystem services on which humanity relies continues to be degraded”, concludes the same UN report.

Vulnerability of the poor to environmental and climate change
While climate change and decline in ecological services effects us all (witness the effects of Hurricane Katriona in USA) it is the poor who are most vulnerable and are already suffering disproportionately from exacerbating drought, extreme climatic events, or the spread of new environmental diseases such as malaria.

‘Marginalised peoples’ often live in ‘marginal areas’. Examples include: the nomadic pastoralists of the Sahel in West Africa where water scarcity is a fact of life; the poor in the crowded urban settlements of South America who are vulnerable to mudslides when heavy rains fall; the landless farmers who colonise the ‘chars’ (temporary islands) of the river deltas of Bangladesh; the small fishermen of South India and Sri Lanka who live in makeshift villages close to the shore; or the recent urban migrants who chose to build their houses in the dried up river beds of Maputo, the capital of Mozambique, and found their homes washed away by the great floods of a few years ago. When sudden natural hazards such as typhoons, droughts or flooding, do occur, it is these poorer people and communities who are ‘on the frontline’ and have few resources, or assets, and institutional supports to fall back on in order to cope.

In other words, people living in poorer communities, have less capacity to adapt to change and are more vulnerable to environmental threats and global change, just as they are more vulnerable to other stresses such as AIDS, conflict and sudden economic shocks. Poverty is generally recognized as one of the most significant causes of vulnerability to environmental threats, on the basis that the poor tend to have much lower coping capacities, and therefore they bear a disproportionate burden of the impact of disasters, conflict, drought, and pollution.

Wealthier parts of the world are perhaps better placed in the short term to afford the costs of cleaning up after an extreme event. They can provide relief and welfare to those effected, or build engineered alternatives to natural services such as artificial flood defences to compensate for the changes made to river banks and wetlands. In the longer term, however, the increased impact of climate change and environmental decline on the poorer parts of the world will bring high financial and political strain on to the international community. This will mean increased pressure to intervene in regional resource conflicts, and the rich world will ultimately have to deal with the migration of large numbers of ‘environmental refugees’.

Economic Globalisation and the Environment
While poverty certainly makes people more vulnerable to natural hazards and environmental decline, we should remember that it the increased generation of wealth, through global economic growth and ‘free trade’, that is by far the biggest contributing factor to the environmental crisis that we currently face. Not only is global warming a direct result of the rapid industrialization and fossil fuel dependent economic growth of the last century, but the unprecedented destruction of ecosystems worldwide in recent decades is being driven by the need to meet the insatiable demands of the global consumer classes, including the growing middle classes and wealthy elites of India, China, Ireland, and other ‘tiger economies’. The negative environmental impacts of trade and investment liberalization have often been overlooked: land degradation; water pollution; loss of biodiversity; the displacement of local community serving economic activity; the loss of common property rights in the shift to export led activity; the failure and obstruction by private interests of policies designed to protect natural resources and ecosystems; and the ‘perverse subsidies’ given to environmentally destructive economic activities, all of what combines to create a model of development that is far from sustainable.

The destruction of mangrove forests along the coasts of many countries in Asia and Latin America is an example of this pressure by economic globalization on the environment. Mangroves act as a ‘natural buffer’ against coastal erosion and storm damage. They also provide essential resources and services that local fishing and coastal communities rely on for their livelihoods. Despite this, in the ever expanding global economy, the insatiable demand for land for export orientated cash crops, for sites for industrial shrimp farms, or new exotic coastal locations for hotel complexes and golf courses, has meant that many developing countries, (invariably with the active encouragement of the IMF and World Bank) have pursued the type of macro economic policies which are rapidly destroying mangrove forests and wetlands. When an extreme natural hazard event, such as a tsunami, does occur, not only are coastal people more exposed to risk but their ability to recover afterward, or to fall back on traditional coping strategies, is severely reduced as their traditional means of livelihood are no longer viable, in other words, local fishing and resource gathering practices have been replaced by industrial shrimp farms or inappropriate tourist developments.

Climate change mitigation and adaption
Development can not be made completely ‘climate proof’. However the onus is on the international community – and particularly the richer countries who, after all, are historically responsible for most fossil fuel created global warming – to not only dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions (‘climate change mitigation’) but to find new ways of building the resilience of vulnerable communities, reducing disaster risk, and adapting to the reality that is a world faced by unprecedented climate change. Priorities must be given to policies that reduce the vulnerability of the poor as part of general strategies for poverty reduction. According to a recent UK Climate Change and Development Working Group report entitled “Up in Smoke: Threats from and responses to the impact of global warming on human development” (www.neweconomics.org/gen/news_upinsmoke.aspx) priorities for action include:

· A global risk assessment of the likely costs of adaption to climate change in poor countries (‘adaption’ refers to the ability of human and ecological systems to manage or cope with a changing climate)

· New funds and resources made available for climate change adaption, while at the same time ensuring such funds are nor taken away from existing development aid budgets

· Effective and efficient arrangements to respond to the increasing burden of climate related disaster relief

· Development models based on risk reduction and incorporation of community driven coping strategies in climate change adaption and ‘disaster preparedness’

· Safeguard ecosystems that act as ‘natural buffers’ against climate related hazards – for example mangroves, forests, coral reefs and natural river deltas

· Small-scale renewable energy projects promoted by governments and community groups which can help to both tackle poverty and reduce climate change if they are replicated and scaled-up. This will require political commitment and new funds from governments in all countries, and a major shift in priorities by the World Bank and other development bodies

The resilience and livelihoods of the poorest can strengthened, the Up in Smoke report argues, only if their access to resources – such as micro-credit, land, farm inputs, education, health facilities and information - is improved. Those with the least resources have the least capacity to adapt and are more vulnerable. This will not necessarily be solved by more foreign direct investment, which – because of higher than usual demands for returns – can drain resources away from poor, high risk economies.

Access to resources, however, is not just a matter of more aid or investment flows, the significance of equity issues (social status, wealth and power) in the resilience of human systems and security of livelihoods, must be not be overlooked.

Ultimately, the same report concludes, we have to rethink ‘development’ itself and find a new model for human progress and development that is climate proof and environmentally friendly and gives everyone a fair share of the natural resources on which we all depend.