Climate change and vulnerable communities

CLIMATE change is going at a pace faster than expected. Its impact and pattern show that it is taking place with greater severity.

Shifting weather patterns, increase in rainfall, rising sea levels, intensifying heat islands and more extreme weather events are devastating evidence of both rapidly changing climate and global warming, with direct and indirect consequences to communities.

It is also well established that those most vulnerable to the adverse impacts of climate change are generally the poorest communities – particularly vulnerable due to their poverty making them less able to adapt – already burdened by deep inequities and compounded disadvantages.

The impacts of climate change also worsen existing poverty and widen inequality between gender, age, class and disability.

For example, those who are vulnerable to flooding, sea level rise and rain-induced landslides are people who are poor and occupy the cheaper, high-risk areas for shelter and livelihood.

An increase in rainfall results in landslides and floods.

Rivers bursting their banks and rising flood water wipes out crops and may leave land waterlogged when it retreats, a daunting challenge for any farmer or communities living in low-lying areas.

Malaysia is vulnerable to natural disaster threats such as floods, haze, storms, landslides and peat fires.

The recent tragic floods in Yan have been rain-induced and natural, but in many parts of the country, heavy rain had worsened the severity of man-made disasters stemming from unsustainable logging and massive development on hill slopes and environmentally sensitive areas.

Landslides due to overdevelopment, with poor precautionary engineering measures, pose a disaster risk during a continuous downpour.

In the case of seasonal floods, hundreds of thousands of people are annually displaced, with damage to properties and public infrastructure, even with flooding preparedness measures.

In Malaysia, several awareness programmes on disaster risk management, especially on floods, have been carried out by strategic agencies.

One of the biggest challenges for disaster management in Malaysia is its heavy dependency on government machinery.

What we need in Malaysia is to promote disaster-resistant communities that can prevent hazards from becoming disasters.

In developing a preparedness plan, it is crucial to involve the community with a bottom-up approach.

By engaging the public and giving them a more active role (they would be taught skills such as reading neighbourhood and community maps) their ability to respond to floods or other disasters effectively and appropriately could be enhanced.

Climate change influences all aspects of city life, society, the economy and environment.

One critical aspect (but less discussed) is the way climate change may affect cities in relation to crime and victimisation.

The debate about the relationship between climate and security has heated up over the years, in particular the influence of global warming on criminal violence in cities around the world.

Evidence suggests that dramatic climate change will generate a substantial increase in crime in many cities, especially in more vulnerable neighbourhoods.

But crucial to these pathways is the commitment and implementation of preventive and adaptation measures. Reducing carbon emissions in the climate change context, should not just be a rhetoric appearing in public sector policy statements, guidelines and plans for a resilient community.

What is crucial is the commitment towards carbon reduction (and negative emissions at best) from industry and development players.

Indeed disaster risk reduction should be supported by the sustainable development approach, with clear spatial strategies to regulate the location and size of potentially pollutive and carbongenerating industries, or negate them at best.

Likewise, development on hill slopes should be minimised and their development codes reviewed to be more stringent.

This is to avoid rain-induced landslides on the slopes, detrimental to both those living in hilly areas as well as vulnerable communities below. Another invasive activity is large-scale logging.

Responses to mitigate the worst effects of extreme weather and redress the environmental injustices and consequential social injustices in our urban and rural areas can help not only to prevent a climate crisis from becoming an emergency but also spare lives and livelihoods as well.

At the very least, local authorities should map out the vulnerability of specific population groups to the differentiated effects of climaterelated shocks and stresses.

The way forward of course is to improve awareness and preparedness for such events and to realise climate change adaptation measures in the present and future development.

Lastly, coordination among agencies, local authorities and community-based organisations are instrumental to tackle the impact of the changing climate on people and communities, ensuring that communities are involved during the process.