Week 1-Day 3: UN Climate Change Conference
Nigel Sizer’s 3rd post from the UN Climate Change Conference, which kicked off on Monday, December 3rd in Bali.
Think about this…
Next time you drive instead of taking public transport, leave your computer or TV on standby all night, turn the AC up another notch, or fly off on a foreign holiday, think about what I am about to tell you.
Climate change is already having a disproportionate impact on the poorest and most vulnerable people on Earth. I attended a panel today on health and climate change convened by the London-based International Institute for Environment and Development. Their partners from Sudan, Zambia, Benin, Malawi and Bangladesh presented new data about disease.
Changes in the patterns of droughts and floods, as well as shifts in humidity and temperature are strongly correlating with expansion of malaria, typhoid and cholera. Let’s take Zambia. Dr. George Kasali, of Energy and Environmental Concerns for Zambia, noted that six out of the last seven years in his country have seen “anomalous weather” with either droughts or floods. Floods drove the jackals out of the parks, which in turn infected domestic dogs with rabies, leading to a spike in human rabies cases. The same floods also flushed out rats, which carry the fleas that harbor bubonic plague (yes that disease still exists!), which in turn lead to dramatic increases in human plague cases. There was a tripling in the number of cases of malaria, including in areas cut off from medical supplies due to the high waters, for three months. That year there were 4 million cases of malaria in Zambia and 50,000 deaths. As George said, “This is worse than a country at war.”
Dr. George Kasali of Energy and Environmental Concerns for Zambia
Throughout the UN climate meetings I am particularly focusing on learning about how climate change affects rural communities in the developing world, the kinds of people Rare works with. The scenarios are deeply concerning.
Rare is starting a feasibility study for a new program we call the Community Carbon Bank. This aims to develop the tools and scale up approaches to connect the rural poor with global carbon markets to reduce poverty, conserve biodiversity and protect human health. More on this over the coming days as I learn from other groups who are looking at this challenge.
