Pacific most at risk: study

As disasters quicken, urgent action, cash needed

BONN, Germany, Nov 7, (RTRS): Many nations have become less vulnerable to natural disasters ranging from cyclones to earthquakes because of improved preparedness, but Pacific island states remain most at risk, a study showed on Tuesday.

Climate change is raising risks by increasing the numbers of severe downpours, storm surges or heat waves, according to the report issued on the sidelines of UN talks on climate change in Germany.

But “on a global scale, vulnerability to extreme natural hazards has declined,” said Peter Mucke, director of the World Risk Report and head of Bündnis Entwicklung Hilft, an alliance of German aid agencies.

“Many countries have learnt from previous disasters and are improving disaster preparedness,” he said of the findings in the annual report, published with the UN University and other groups. The report assesses the risks that an extreme natural event will lead to a disaster in 171 nations in the period 2012-16. It listed Vanuatu, Tonga, the Philippines, Guatemala, Bangladesh, Solomon Islands and Costa Rica as the most vulnerable.

Fiji, which is presiding over a Nov 6-17 meeting in Bonn on ways to strengthen the 2015 Paris climate agreement, ranked 15th most vulnerable. As a region, Europe was least vulnerable.

The report said there were many ways to make societies less vulnerable to disasters, from cyclone shelters to flood barriers on rivers. “Mangroves can

authorities class as hazardous.

“We have declared a state of public health emergency in Delhi since pollution is at an alarming level,” the head of the Indian Medical Association (IMA) Krishan Kumar Aggarwal told AFP.

“Delhi authorities have to make every possible effort to curb this menace.”

The World Health Organization in 2014 classed New Delhi as the world’s most polluted capital, with air quality levels worse reduce flood risks to people and property,” said Michael Beck of the Nature Conservancy.

The report assesses both risks such as from storms, where rising sea levels linked to melting glaciers play a role, and earthquakes and tsunamis that are unaffected by man-made climate change.

As climate change impacts strengthen, poor people and countries vulnerable to rising sea level, droughts, hurricanes and floods need to be the focus of this year’s UN climate talks — and governments need to act faster to protect them, campaigners said on Monday.

Rising

For the first time, the talks, which opened in Bonn Monday, are being presided over by a small island state — Fiji, which is already facing problems from rising seas that forced one coastal village to move in 2014.

As millions worldwide are affected by increasingly frequent climate shocks, developing countries lack the resources to cope with the next disaster, said Harjeet Singh, ActionAid International’s global lead on climate change.

The talks need “to represent the interests of all vulnerable countries and people”, he said on the sidelines of the negotiations.

Vital to that is making progress in raising money to help countries recover from disasters, and adapt their lives and economies to the changing climate, he said. Richer countries have promised to raise $100 billion a year by 2020 to

than Beijing. (AFP)

2 kids sue over CPP roll back:

Two children, backed by the Clean Air Council environmental group, sued US President Donald Trump and two of his Cabinet members on Monday to try to stop them from scrapping a package of pollutionreduction rules known as the Clean Power Plan (CPP). help poorer nations make that transition — though many experts say the figure is well below what is needed.

“The Fijian presidency has a moral responsibility to make sure we make huge progress around (climate finance),” Singh said.

“We need to have tangible outcomes from (these talks). We can’t leave (here) and say to people affected by disasters: ‘Sorry guys, you’re on your own.’”

A group representing 12 Pacific island nations on Monday urged the government leaders to act quickly. More than two decades of climate negotiations have not yet delivered enough action to protect homes and jobs from dangerous climate change, said members of the Pacific Climate Warriors group.

“In the Pacific, the impacts of climate change are not a debate, it is our reality. We no longer have time to talk. Now is the time to act,” said the young islanders, part of a network of Pacifid youth fighting climate change.

UN climate leaders on Monday agreed that countries need to act quickly and with ambition to cut planet-warming emissions and to help the millions of people whose lives have been devastated by natural disasters.

“Never before have we met with a greater sense of urgency,” said Patricia Espinosa, head of the UN Climate Change Secretariat.

“Millions of people have suffered and continue to suffer from extreme weather events .... (and) the fact is that this may only be the start, a preview of what is to come,” she said.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, says the United States is “relying on junk science” and ignoring “clear and present dangers of climate change, knowingly increasing its resulting damages, death and destruction.”

It was the latest legal action that green advocates have taken to combat Trump administration efforts to roll back environmental regulations through rule changes at agencies like the US Department of Interior and the US Environmental Protection Agency.

The lawsuit asks the court to prevent the EPA, Trump and the US Department of Energy, along with Energy Secretary Rick Perry and EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, from rolling back any rules that “increase the frequency and/or intensity of life-threatening effects of climate change.” (RTRS)

Deadly heat may hit slums hardest:

With sheet metal roofs, concrete floors, poor ventilation and spotty electricity, crowded urban slums in Africa can expect to get even hotter and deadlier due to global warming, US researchers said Monday.

Scientists at Johns Hopkins University analyzed three informal settlements in Nairobi, including the largest, Kibera, home to nearly a million people.

Along the settlements’ narrow alleyways, mud-walled homes and metal roofs, they found stifling temperatures, “between five and nearly 10 degrees Fahrenheit (2.7-5.5 C) higher than those reported at Nairobi’s official weather station less than half a mile away,” said the study in the journal PLOS ONE. (AFP)