UNDERSTANDING DISASTER RISK REDUCTION AND CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION

Chapter 1 is designed to help development and humanitarian practitioners understand the basic concepts of disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation, as well as the benefits and key elements of an integrated approach to building resilience to disaster and climate change risk. It includes:

• Explanations of:

- The challenges posed by disasters and climate change;

- The evolution of disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation as concepts and in practice;

- The rationale for an integrated approach to disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation.

• 10 principles for integrated disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation.

• Answers to frequently asked questions.

1.1 Disaster and climate change risk concepts

Disaster risk

Development and humanitarian practitioners share a common goal: the empowerment of women, men and children to enjoy their human rights, and the ongoing protection of those rights. Development strategies and humanitarian responses need, therefore, to incorporate measures to reduce the main risks to achieving this goal.

But the impacts of disasters continue to be a major obstacle to this. Recorded disasters alone from 2001 to 2010 affected, on average, 232 million people per year, killed 106 million others, and caused US$108 billion in economic damages. In addition, countless small-scale, unreported disasters put a cumulative strain on health, lives and livelihoods.

It is now widely accepted that disasters are not unavoidable interruptions to development, to be dealt with solely through rapid delivery of emergency relief, but are the result of unmanaged risks within the development process itself. They are created when a hazard, such as a flood or earthquake, occurs where people, assets and systems are exposed and vulnerable to its effects.

Conversely, disaster risk can be significantly reduced through strategies that seek to decrease vulnerability and exposure to hazards within wider efforts to address poverty and inequality. Humanitarian responses to disasters and other crises can be designed and implemented in ways that protect the affected people's right to life and other basic rights in the short and longer term. This approach is known as disaster risk reduction.

Disaster risk reduction

Disaster risk reduction is defined as: "The concept and practice of reducing disaster risks through systematic efforts to analyze and manage the causal factors of disasters, including through reduced exposure to hazards, lessened vulnerability of people and property, wise management of land and the environment, and improved preparedness for adverse events."

People around the world constantly seek ways to reduce disaster risks. Some combine diverse livelihood strategies, such as fishing, farming and selling manual labor, to reduce their vulnerability to losses in one area; some use social networks to obtain information about good pasture, or impending hazards, such as swollen rivers, and plan their actions accordingly. But in many cases poverty and marginalization restrict their effectiveness and options, and rural-to-urban migration exposes them to unfamiliar situations in which they lack the knowledge and means to manage new risks.

Today, there is increasing awareness that states — within their obligation to respect, fulfill and protect human rights — have primary responsibility for reducing disaster risk, and that the international community has a duty to provide support and create an enabling environment for this obligation to be met. By signing the Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA) at the World Conference on Disaster Reduction in 2005, 168 governments and all leading development and humanitarian actors committed to a 10 year multi-stakeholder and multi-sectoral plan to invest in disaster risk reduction as a means to building disaster-resilient societies.

Since the HFA was agreed, many governments have introduced legislative and policy frameworks for disaster risk reduction, established early warning systems and increased their level of preparedness to respond to disasters. However, the goals of the HFA are still far from being achieved, particularly in terms of addressing the causes of risk and ensuring full participation of at-risk populations in risk assessments, planning processes and programs. A massive effort is needed to bring about change at the heart of each country's 'development system' through the involvement of all sectors and all stakeholders — from local to national — in disaster risk reduction.

Climate change risk

As scientific knowledge of global climate change increases and its impacts are experienced around the world, there is a clear need for a broader approach to reducing risks.

Current global climate change is understood to be the result of human activities since the Industrial Revolution — such as the burning of fossil fuels and land-use change (for example, deforestation) — resulting in a significant increase in greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide. While greenhouse gases are a natural part of the Earth's atmosphere and serve to maintain temperatures to support life, excessive emission of these is causing more heat to be trapped in the atmosphere, leading to rising temperatures.

Projected changes in the climate include temperature increases on land and at sea, sea-level rise, melting of glaciers and ice caps, and changing and irregular rainfall patterns. These changes affect almost every aspect of human life and the ecosystems on which it depends.

Climate change will result in increases in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, as well as significant impacts from more gradual changes. The nature, extent and duration of climate change effects on regions vary. Efforts to reduce the impacts of climate change are known as climate change adaptation.

Climate change adaptation

Climate change adaptation is a practice covering actions by a range of actors to manage and reduce the risks associated with changes in the climate. Varying technical and scientific definitions exist to best serve the purposes of different actors involved in the climate change sphere. For the purposes of this guide the following simplified working definition of climate change adaptation is used:

a) Adapting development to gradual changes in average temperature, sea-level and precipitation; and,

b) Reducing and managing the risks associated with more frequent, severe and unpredictable extreme weather events.

People have always adapted to climate variability through a variety of means including, for example, planting late-transplant rice or switching to other, faster-growing crops. However climate change is pushing at-risk populations beyond their capacity to cope and adapt to the changes they have traditionally dealt with, as well as making more people vulnerable due to their increased sensitivity and exposure to climate change impacts.

Governments and institutions are coming to realize that security, poverty reduction and prosperity will depend on the integration of climate change adaptation strategies in all sectors, and their implementation at all levels. Development and humanitarian practitioners also have an important role to play in terms of advocating for the rights of the women, men and children at greatest risk to be prioritized, and incorporating climate change adaptation strategies into their own programs.

As an approach, climate change adaptation is a dynamic process and not an end state, given the uncertainty in climate change impacts and the need to support at-risk populations to: address current hazards, increased variability and emerging trends; manage risk and uncertainty; and build their capacity to adapt.

1.2 Constructing an integrated approach to disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation

Increasingly, development and humanitarian practitioners are discovering the need for, and advantages of, using an approach that integrates concepts and practices from both disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation, as explained below:

Common concerns

There is significant convergence between the problems that disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation seek to address. As shown in Figure 1.1, populations already exposed to climate-related hazards and effects will be at greater risk due to a projected increase in the frequency and/or intensity of those hazards and effects as a result of global climate change.

Furthermore, populations exposed to hazards may experience stresses due to longer-term changes in the climate — such as changes in seasonality, unpredictable rainfall, and sea-level rise — that affect their livelihoods and health, making them more vulnerable to all types of shocks, events and further changes.

A common conceptual understanding of risk

Disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation also share a common conceptual understanding of the components of risk and the processes of building resilience. The two approaches regard risk as the product of exposure and vulnerability, either to hazard(s) or effect(s) of climate change, or both. The greater the vulnerability, exposure and magnitude or likelihood of the hazard/climate change effect, the greater the risk.

Both exposure and vulnerability are compounded by other societal and environmental trends, for example, urbanization, environmental degradation, and the globalization of markets.

Thus, to reduce disaster and climate change risk, exposure needs to be minimized, vulnerability reduced, and capacities for resilience strengthened in ways that address both disaster and climate change risk simultaneously, neither approach compromising the other. This is a dynamic process requiring continual effort across economic, social, cultural, environmental, institutional and political spheres to move from vulnerability to resilience.

Similarity of impacts

The impacts of disasters and effects of climate change have similar consequences for people's lives and the extent to which they are able to realize and enjoy their rights, as shown in Figure 1.4. Disasters and the shocks and stresses caused by effects of climate change can cause significant losses which, in turn, increase vulnerability, resulting in a downward trend of impoverishment and denial of rights.

Disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation share a goal: both approaches seek to strengthen people's and societies' capacity for resilience so that their own efforts and those of development interventions may lead to full realization and enjoyment of their rights.

1.3 Principles of an integrated approach to disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation

As global commitment to and investment in disaster risk reduction has grown, so has practitioners' and policy-makers' knowledge of good practice, enabling factors, and barriers to success. Meanwhile, innovative action-research in the field of climate change adaptation is rapidly producing valuable indicators of the fundamental elements for effective adaptation programming. Most recently, interest among development and humanitarian actors in improving understanding of how to generate greater resilience to shocks and stresses, including hazards and the effects of climate change, is resulting in constructive debate. There is significant convergence in the lessons, recommendations and challenges emerging from each of these spheres of activity, and a growing consensus on the need for an integrated approach.

The following 10 principles for an integrated approach to disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation are drawn from this increasing body of knowledge. Together, these principles provide development and humanitarian practitioners with a set of criteria for building disaster and climate resilience that is applicable across the program cycle in multiple sectors and varied contexts.

1. Increase understanding of the hazard and climate change context: An understanding of past trends, present experiences and future projections of hazard occurrence, climate variability and the range of effects of climate change on the area and population concerned should underpin any decisions or actions to build disaster and climate resilience. It should include mapping at different scales, to allow for regional and local hazards and effects of climate change. The risk analysis process itself should increase understanding among all stakeholders, both as a result of its participatory nature, and through sharing of the results.

2. Increase understanding of exposure, vulnerability and capacity: An assessment of the vulnerabilities and capacities of the population, systems and resources should be the foundation for decisions on the location, target populations (including understanding differential vulnerability), objectives and approach of measures to build disaster and climate resilience. It should include analysis of the projected effects of climate change as well as of those currently observed. The assessment should also increase understanding among all stakeholders of the causes of exposure, vulnerability and capacity, both as a result of a participatory process, and through sharing of the results.

3. Recognize rights and responsibilities: Disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation should be regarded among the responsibilities of states and governments as duty-bearers for the realization and enjoyment of human rights. Governance systems and the political environment should enable people at risk or affected by disasters and climate change to demand accountability for their decisions, actions and omissions. The role of other stakeholders, including NGOs, should be complementary to, and enabling of, the relationship between duty-bearers and right-holders.

4. Strengthen participation of, and action by, the population at risk: All people at risk have the right to participate in decisions that affect their lives. Their first-hand knowledge of the issues affecting them is critical to ensuring that analysis and subsequent actions are based on empirical evidence. In addition, the sustainability of resilience-building strategies depends on their ownership and agency. Therefore all decision-making processes and actions should directly involve the population at risk ensuring that women, men and children, as well as high-risk groups, are included.

5. Promote systemic engagement and change: As there are multiple causes and drivers of vulnerability and exposure to hazards and the effects of climate change, strategies to build disaster and climate resilience should engage all sectors of society and government. The goal of multi-sectoral and multi-stakeholder engagement should be to make building disaster and climate resilience central to development planning. The commitment of all actors to this goal should be reflected in their respective policies, plans and budgets.

6. Foster synergy between multiple levels: The importance of an enabling political environment is critical to actions taken at the household, community and local levels. Similarly, the impact of a policy or law depends on its implementation by different levels of government and its relevance to the population at risk. Decisions and actions taken at each level should be mutually informative and facilitate the development of a coherent and coordinated approach.

7. Draw on and build diverse sources of knowledge: Analysis of disaster and climate change risk should seek to complement local and traditional knowledge with the results of scientific research in order to continue to co-generate new knowledge. Measures to build disaster and climate resilience should promote replication of effective practices, encourage autonomous innovation and introduce, where appropriate, external technology to help address new or magnified challenges. Strategies and programs should be monitored and evaluated to ensure that learning is captured and made available to others.

8. Instill flexibility and responsiveness: As the effects and impacts of climate change remain uncertain, particularly on a local scale, and many dynamic processes (such as urbanization and environmental degradation) influence exposure and vulnerability, analysis of disaster and climate change risk should be responsive to emerging knowledge. Similarly, strategies and programs to build disaster and climate resilience should be flexible, to accommodate new inputs.

9. Address different timescales: Analysis, strategies and programs should address current, identified risks and likely future scenarios. Preparing for the occurrence of known hazards should not be neglected in favor of building capacities to adapt to medium- and long-term effects of climate change, and other, potentially unknown shocks or stresses. Resource allocation and activities should be planned accordingly.