Why the world isn't ready for climate change and the Darfur mission's funding woes.

Getting hotter...

Did you know that, globally, this June was the second hottest on record? Or that the first six months of 2006 in the United States were the warmest ever recorded? Or that 2005 was one of the two hottest years on record globally since the mid-1800s (the other being 1998)?

So what, you might say, as you stock up on sun-tan lotion and goodies for the barbecue. But climate change experts would have us - and, crucially, our governments - think a little more deeply about what rising global temperatures mean, especially for the world's poorest communities, which are particularly vulnerable to the impact of related weather events (droughts, floods and so on).

Prominent international economist Jeffrey Sachs, director of Columbia University's Earth Institute, quipped to delegates at a U.N.-backed conference called Living with Climate Variability and Change in Finland this week that, climate-wise, "we're in for quite a rocky ride in the years ahead".

More sombrely he warned the world isn't ready for the climatic changes coming our way - mainly because policymakers don't seem to grasp how climate issues interact with society and thus what they need to do to stop people lives being devastated by climate-linked disasters.

The press release for the conference says (deep breath) that the goals are "to contribute towards the establishment of a global agenda for climate-related risk management and to propose a sustainable course of action for future efforts to optimise societal response to climate variability and change."

Yes, it's jargon - and perhaps that's one of the reasons why not much progress has been made so far in protecting people from the negative impacts of natural and not-quite-so-natural disasters. Climate and weather experts haven't quite managed to get the message across yet...

But they're now realising the data they come up with - including seasonal and longer-term predictions - could be used in a much more practical and useful way by societies, thereby avoiding preventable deaths and destruction. So it's time for a bit more cooperation and, one would hope, a bit more plain speaking.

Michel Jarraud, secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organization (one of the agencies sponsoring the conference), spelled out the problem in fairly stark terms: "If you look at a 10-year period, on average you still have well over half a million people dying from natural disasters (every year). There are still too many people dying," he told AlertNet on the sidelines of the conference.

"The way to reduce that is by improving early-warning capabilities, and for many of these weather and water - climate-related disasters - the capacity to provide it is there... But the key is also to make sure these warnings are integrated into proper national disaster prevention mechanisms. A forecast that is not used makes it useless."

But do cash-strapped developing countries have the funds required to set up effective systems to prevent and cope with disasters? Jarraud stressed that the cost of setting up the necessary systems isn't that high. The main advantage, he said, is that research shows one euro invested in prevention saves about seven times as much in relief.

Nonetheless, Filipe Lucio, director of Mozambique's National Institute of Meteorology, told AlertNet that there still isn't enough funding being put into this area in developing countries.

"Governments have to commit themselves to contribute to disaster risk reduction, and there has to be a new approach where there are partnerships and alliances with the private sector and institutions that in the past have not traditionally provided resources," he said. "International solidarity also plays an important role."

Lucio argued that some African countries - including South Africa, Botswana, Ethiopia and Mozambique - have developed good systems to reduce the risk of disasters (as have others in Asia and Latin America). Others lag way behind, and helping them requires better international dialogue on early warning, collaboration on observation networks and support for education, training and technology, he said.

Yet for all this talk to mean something to people on the ground, communication is vital. We need to understand why it matters and how things could work better in practice.

Jeffrey Sachs cited a number of examples to show why it's important to integrate knowledge on climate into all policy-making:

• The conflict in Darfur, he said, is actually rooted in drought and water shortages that occurred in the 1980s, and which sparked violence between settled farmers and pastoralists. Although it's rarely recognised, the underlying water shortages and food insecurity continue to play a key role, and there's no hope of peace unless these issues are addressed.

• In Ecuador, in 1998, when the Super El Nino caused massive flooding in coastal areas, export crops and shrimp farms were destroyed, and because farmers couldn't repay their loans, and the banking system was already in trouble, this caused a run on banks. In effect the government, which lost power as a result, was forced out by the weather.

• When Hurricane Mitch slammed into Central America, also in 1998, there were only four deaths in Costa Rica, where the government prepared its citizens, but in Honduras some 10,000 people were killed as they continued to sleep in the absence of any warning. Poor people living on lower land near rivers were particularly affected.

• Less wealthy people in rich countries that don't make adequate provision also lose out when disaster strikes - as happened last year with Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. Sachs said the poor and vulnerable were abandoned by social support systems, whereas those with access to private transport were able to escape.

In Sachs' view, the measures experts and governments need to take to reduce vulnerability to disasters include better use and analysis of data and forecasting/early warning, the creation of physical and financial buffers (including weather-related insurance) and a more pro-active international relief and response system.

The fancy term for policies of this kind is "adaptation" - making adjustments in order to better cope with the climate hazards and changes heading our way (some of which are likely to be caused or made worse by global warming).

As Sachs put it, "The world has not done a very good job at responding to the ever-growing evidence about anthropogenic (man-made) climate change. So far efforts have focused on mitigation - and with major actors not part of international climate agreements, we haven't really got a great strategy there.

"But even less have we put together a strategy together for adaptation. There is no post-box for countries such as Chad and others affected by climate change to write to for help."

When I got back to my hotel room after the first day of the conference, the news on TV could hardly have been worse - besides the Middle East turmoil, more than 100 people had been killed in a tsunami in Java, there were forest fires raging in Portugal due to hot, dry weather, and some 200 people had died in floods in China.

The weather man on CNN was encouraging viewers based in Europe to protect themselves and their families from the heatwave that's making life a bit uncomfortable in parts of the continent. His recommendations included not going out and not drinking alcohol.

It seemed like a very small example of what the climate and weather experts gathered near Helsinki want us to be doing more of...

The Darfur mission's funding woes

Not for the first time, aid agencies are calling on international donors to cough up money to help the African Union protect lives in Sudan's Darfur. The said donors - including the European Union and United States - are meeting today in Brussels to discuss the situation.

The eight aid agencies, which include Oxfam, Islamic Relief, Christian Aid and CARE International, say the African Union Mission in Darfur has only enough funds to pay salaries until the end of July, and $270 million is needed to fund the mission until December-end.

"This lack of funding means patrols in and around camps are impossible or have been scaled back and we are seeing people attacked, killed or raped as a result," says Denis Caillaux, secretary general of CARE International.

According to Human Rights Watch, civilians are now at even greater risk from a growing number of armed groups across the region, including Sudanese government security agencies incorporating "Janjaweed", new rebel factions in Darfur and Chadian rebels backed by Khartoum.

The A.U.'s peacekeeping force consists of 7,000 troops who patrol an area the size the France. They have to protect villagers, roads and the roughly 2 million people living in camps.

"While an enormous amount of energy is being spent debating what will happen in six months' time, no one seems to have noticed that people are still being killed today," says Caillaux.

- By Megan Rowling in Espoo, Finland, and Alex Whiting in London