In Alaska, climate change is evident.Temperatures across the state have increased by between 2 and 3.5 degrees Celsius since 1974, arctic sea ice is decreasing in extent and thickness, wildfires are increasing in size and extent, and permafrost is thawing.…
Among the obvious diseases that will plague health planners, health care workers and policymakers in an era of climate change related migration, some of the most likely diseases are mosquito-borne. Malaria and dengue have always moved with people, and in…
In the past 100 years, Kenya recorded 28 major droughts, four of which occurred in the last ten years. These droughts have had a devastating impact on people’s lives and livelihoods. For the three million pastoralists of northern Kenya, climate…
Poor countries are disproportionately affected by natural hazards, owing to their intrinsically greater vulnerability to hazards and comparatively low capacities for risk reduction measures, while richer countries tend to sustain large economic costs. Over the period 1991-2005, developing and least…
Nigeria is experiencing increasing incidence of disease, declining agricultural productivity, increasing number of heatwaves, unreliable or erratic weather patterns, flooding, declining rainfall in already desert-prone areas in the north causing increasing desertification, decreasing food production in central regions, and destruction…
The European Court of Human Rights recently clarified these obligations when it had to address the question as to whether and when deaths caused by a man-made or natural disaster can amount to a human rights violation by the state,…
It is now clear that humanitarian preparedness and response to extreme weather events and other changes are a small but extremely important emerging component of the climate change adaptation debate. Two trends are of particular humanitarian concern. First, climate change…
What does climate change mean for potential returnees to, for example, South Sudan – a land from which many had fled several decades ago? Will people who have lived in camps for the intervening years be able to resume a…
Climate change appears to be taking place at a rate that outstrips many worst-case predictions. This has implications in terms of human costs that are difficult to fathom. There is mounting evidence that climate-related disaster events are having an impact…
Prevention and mitigation must be priorities for action but, with global warming already a reality, there are some impacts for which adaptation is the only available and appropriate response. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change stresses the importance of addressing…