UN to Explore Resilience, Climate Change in Sahel, Caribbean
Following the recent landmark report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) saying that it is still possible to limit climate change to 1.5°C, the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) will hold two meetings exploring resilience in climatevulnerable areas—Africa’s Sahel region –which has seen higher temperature, recurrent droughts and severe land degradation— and the Caribbean, which was pummeled by a pair of severe hurricanes in 2017.
Climate change is seen as a threat multiplier—it exacerbates and amplifies existing problems and challenges. And while the climate change contribution to any specific condition or event is still being closely studied, the interlinkages between climate change and conflict are considered by many to be increasingly evident in many parts of the world, including in Africa’s Sahel region, one of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable regions.
“We are all seeing the consequences of climate change through more extreme weather, rising sea levels and diminishing Arctic sea ice,” said Rhonda King, ECOSOC President. “The increase and intensity of climate-related disasters is worrying. And the human cost is significant–people losing their lives, livelihoods and being displaced.”
ECOSOC, together with the UN Peacebuilding Commission, will look at the interlinkages between climate change and sustaining peace in the Sahel region where temperature increases are projected to be 1.5 times higher than in the rest of the world, and where 90 per cent of its economy is reliant on agriculture and pastoralism. Droughts in the region have had devastating impacts on people who have little resilience and few coping strategies.
In the Sahel, the effects of climate change are compounded by persistent governance and security challenges that further contribute to the Sahel’s dire humanitarian situation. More than four million people in the Lake Chad Basin area have faced food insecurity in 2018, along with ongoing conflict and insecurity. Shortages of land, pasture and water have led to the forced migration of pastoralist communities in Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and the Niger, putting 2.5 million people at risk of a livelihood crisis in 2018 in the affected areas. The number of displaced people across the Lake Chad basin region was 2.3 million, including 1.7 million internally.