'A world in crisis: climate breakdown, conflict and us'. A lecture ... - ReliefWeb

‘A world in crisis: climate breakdown, conflict and us'. A lecture delivered by Commissioner Janez Lenarčič at the Center for European Studies, Harvard University - World | ReliefWeb

Boston, 19 September 2023

Dear colleagues, ladies and gentlemen,

There are roughly 20 people in this room. If we represented the population of Sudan, 8 of us would need humanitarian assistance. And if we represented Haiti, it would be 10 of us. If we were Afghanistan, it would be 15 of us. Three quarters of this room.

I want to illustrate this clear trend: that huge numbers of people across the world are suffering. And these numbers are growing.

This is happening for various reasons – including the climate crisis. I have come here from Europe. Where, in Greece, we have just had the largest wildfires ever recorded on the European continent, happening in the Athens region. 100,000 hectares burnt. And then the same country, a few days later, was struck by the worst floods anyone can remember. The setting of new records like this has become an annual occurrence.

I know you here in North America have also suffered ever larger wildfires and floods. Every year, wherever we look, more and more people's lives are being upturned by extreme weather events.

To some these disasters may seem remote, especially from here in the leafy streets of Harvard University. But every year they are getting closer; more frequent; more violent. We are all affected by what is going on.

But we have to broaden our look beyond this summer of emergencies. When we look at long-term trends, we can see where we are headed. We are facing a dangerous combination of climate breakdown and conflict. And we may well be on the road to destruction if we stay on this route.

What does that mean in practical terms? There are over 360 million people today worldwide who are in need of humanitarian assistance. This is the highest figure ever.

If this constituted a country, it would be the third largest country in the world. Bigger than the United States. And the population of this non-country will continue to grow.

In my time with you today, I want to first look at the global crisis overview and what this means for us. Then I would like to dwell on the dual engines of these crises: conflict and climate breakdown. And finally, I will outline three clear actions we must take to avoid the worst of this future.

So first: let's look at the global web of crises. For this purpose, my colleagues have prepared a map. No matter where you are on this map, you are affected in some way by climate breakdown.

From this perspective, we can clearly see the crisis points spreading across the world. The percentages of the populations that are most affected by climate breakdown give a snapshot of global suffering globally. The pie charts show the extreme weather events that are driving the crises in these countries. If we look at the next map, we added some of the significant extreme weather events of the last year. We see that no continent can escape disasters. Heatwaves across Europe. Storms and wildfires across the USA. Droughts in Africa. Floods in Asia. And so on.

Then we add the conflict. Which further deepens global crisis. This often overlaps with areas that are experiencing extreme climate breakdown.

When taken all together, our world map is a chaos of conflict and climate emergency. Where disasters are on the rise. The number of people in need grows annually. And the funding required to respond to emergencies and to keep these people alive keeps increasing. Today, the funding required for global humanitarian aid is eight times higher than in the millennium.

This is our reality. Climate breakdown and conflict are common drivers of crisis that threaten us all. Often these factors are directly linked, such as increasing violence breaking out over dwindling natural resources.

The poet Stanley Kunitz, who attended this university nearly a century ago, could have been describing about today's humanitarian situation when he wrote: “The universe is a continuous web. Touch it at any point and the whole web quivers.”

A good illustration of that is today's Russian aggression against Ukraine. Which has affected energy and food prices around the world. This means for people everywhere that we will pay more for energy and food. This also means that the most vulnerable will go hungry and no longer be able to afford food. So, this war of aggression has a direct impact on the most vulnerable parts of the world where people are going hungry. Not to talk about Russian attempts to prevent or limit exports of Ukrainian food products.

I have been EU Commissioner for Crisis Management for four years. In these four years in this position I have seen the situation grow steadily more desperate. Our work is becoming more necessary and more difficult with every passing year, due to conflicts that proliferate and the climate crisis that fuels worldwide humanitarian needs.

Tomorrow, I will be in New York at the UN General Assembly session. Where we will take stock of the global situation and discuss what can be done. As a society we already have the knowledge, the ability and the resources to tackle these crises – but so many countries are not doing that. They remain in the past, instead of preparing for the future.

The first thing that we need to do is to match humanitarian aid – emergency aid intended to alleviate suffering and save lives – with development and peace efforts in order to avert greater global crisis. We have to do this urgently because the gap between humanitarian needs and the resources available is growing. This summer, it exceeded 43 billion US dollars. It is a huge sum – but still less than the profit made by one fossil fuel giant, Exxon Mobil, last year alone.

There are countries working to close this gap. The United States, which is the single biggest global humanitarian donor. And Europe and its member states, the second biggest global humanitarian donor. But more action is urgently needed by more countries. I would like to note here that of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council – the body that under the UN Charter bears the primary responsibility for international peace and security and has evidently failed because conflict remains one of the key drivers of humanitarian need – of these five permanent members, only three appear in the top ten global donors of humanitarian aid.

I believe that humanitarian aid is a global responsibility that has to be shared equitably. In particular, all those who aspire to play a global role – those gathered in the G20 – should do better.

One direct and more equitable way to do this would be for each country to allocate a percentage of Gross National Income. Last December, Spain committed itself to allocating at least 0.07% of its Gross National Income to humanitarian aid. This target was then taken by the entire EU membership as a target to which everyone should aspire. It is not a hard, legally binding target but a soft target. But a meaningful one nonetheless. And we do hope that others follow this ambition.

At the moment, it is only a handful of countries that currently meet this target: the United States, four of the EU member states, and a few other countries.

More funding will also be needed in relation to climate breakdown. But very little of that funding is going to those who are most vulnerable. This year, 32 of the countries most vulnerable to the climate crisis received less than 1 dollar per person in climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction funding. Imagine if your world fell apart, and you got given one dollar to fix it.

So, when we look at these two key drivers of humanitarian crisis, conflict is still the biggest driver. 80% of humanitarian crisis is due to conflict. We have three types of conflict. Protracted conflicts that have been with us for many years. Like Syria and Yemen. Then we have those that are managed but suddenly erupt again: like Sudan and Russian aggression in Ukraine. Then we have new conflicts, where the trend is going in an undesired direction. In more and more places, we see violence pushing people into ever more desperate and dangerous situations.

I repeat here: there is a body in this world that bears primary responsibility for international peace and security. It is evidently not doing its job very effectively. Which is not surprising, if one of its members is grossly violating fundamental principles of the UN Charter and international law by attacking a neighbouring country with the intention to annex it. So, we are not doing well on the conflict front – and neither are we doing well on the climate front. As I said, extreme weather events have now become the norm. The rules governing weather are now broken. We are in unknown territory. We don't know what will hit us, and when and where we will encounter wildfires or flooding. But we know these things can hit anywhere at any time. This is the new era in which we have to live.

If we don't act, we are bound to see the world in a much worse shape. It is estimated that, in the coming years if nothing is done, the frequency of natural disasters will increase by 40%. This alone could result in 200 million people around the world needing global aid. Imagine: if all conflict stopped tomorrow, we would still be heading towards a world where hundreds of millions of people are in need of humanitarian aid due to climate breakdown.

Of course, conflict and climate are not the only drivers of crisis. We also had the coronavirus pandemic, which had a devastating effect around the world and has especially affected negatively the most vulnerable parts of the globe: including many African countries where job losses were permanent and communities have been destroyed.

So, how do we reduce this discrepancy between ever growing humanitarian needs and resources available? There are three ways. One is to increase the funding. We have discussed this. Everyone should assume their fair share of their responsibility. The second way is to use the available funding more effectively. And the third way is to reduce humanitarian needs.

But on both key fronts, conflict and climate crisis, we are not doing well.

So, to conclude, there are three actions we need to pursue. These are all connected, and all necessary for a safer future. The first action is climate action. The second action is better cooperation on a global scale. And the third action is adaptation.

On climate action: of course, we have to tackle the problem at its root cause. We must prevent the climate crisis worsening through a global transition to climate neutral technologies. We were heartened when the US adopted the Inflation Reduciton Act. Alongside the EU Green Deal, together we are really making a difference.

Of course, this will not be enough if just the US and the EU act. Others will have to do their part. And I'm hoping this will happen at the upcoming COP28 conference.

This is about pooling resources to respond to various disasters. Because even if we stop all emissions today, the web of destruction is already there.

How do we approach this from a European perspective?

More than two decades ago, we established something called the Union Civil Protection Mechanism. Because we realised that, whilst the response to natural and manmade disasters is a national competence of EU member states and European Commission only has a supporting role, that that there may be cases when member states are overwhelmed by natural disasters. And that is why this mechanism was created.

When one member state asks for assistance, others come to help. And this is not only open to member states, but also to any country in the world. Interestingly, this year Canada is the first G7 country outside the EU to ask for assistance through the Union Civil Protection Mechanism. In response we dispatched several hundred firefighters from France, Spain and Portugal to help tackle the forest fires which raged in Canada this summer.

Soon, however, we realised that this is not enough. Because the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, as well as the pandemic which affected everybody at the same time, showed that sometimes this mutual assistance won't do. We need something more. So what is that?

It is something that we call rescEU. It's a strategic reserve at European level containing capacities to respond to various crises. We started with firefighting planes and helicopters but have now expanded to many other areas. Due to the pandemic we have expanded to medical equipment, and even before Russian full scale aggression in Ukraine we had also expanded to logistics. Supplying emergency items, energy supplies and chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear measures and equipment. Just in case there would be a nuclear incident.

Why is this important? Because we see that local capacities are increasingly overwhelmed. But not only of the affected country – also of other countries, meaning they are unable to come to help. I mentioned the largest fire in Europe, burning in Greece. For that fire alone, we mobilised 12 planes and helicopters. All of them were from these EU strategic reserves. Why? Because all other capacities – Spanish, Italian, French – were busy at home fighting fires raging everywhere.

So that is what we are doing. And I think we should expand that somehow and have a mechanism at a global level. This EU mechanism is already available to any country in the world that needs assistance. It is an example of how you can do better in responding to what can no longer be changed.

The third action is adaptation. Not only must we be prepared and cooperate more closely in responding to disasters, but we also have to adapt to these new circumstances. How do we do that? Well, there are so many ways.

Why would you plant tomatoes in an arid part of the country where water is already scarce and is getting scarcer? There are many other ways to organise productive agriculture in these challenging circumstances.

Likewise, you can prevent a lot of wildfire damage if you adapt forest management. I recall footage of a forest completely burnt in Canada. In the midst of it, there was a birch tree standing untouched. The fact is that leafy trees are much more resistant to fires. Because fir trees contain resin which increases fire risk.

So these are three actions that I think we should pursue. Climate action, which needs global contribution from each and every part of the global community. Enhanced preparation in preparing and responding to what is already happening and what will continue to happen. And finally, to adapt our ways to these new circumstances.

So I will stop here. I thank you for your attention and I look forward to your comments and questions.

Thank you.

SPEECH/23/4525