Climate Change, Extreme Weather Events and Global Health Security a Lens into Vulnerabilities

Abstract

Natural hazards have displaced over 26.4 million people per year since 2008 (Norwegian Refugee Council, Global estimates 2015: people displaced by disasters. Retrieved from http://www.internal-displacement.org/assets/library/Media/201507-globalEstimates-2015/20150713-global-estimates-2015-en-v1.pdf, 2015). This number will only increase as climate change continues to exacerbate displacement due to monsoon-related flooding, coastal erosion, cyclones, and salinity intrusion (Barua P, Shahjahan M, Rahman M, Rahman S, Molla M. Forced Migr Rev 1(56), 88–91, 2017; Toufique K, Islam A, Int J Disaster Risk Reduction 10(Part A):236–249, 2014). Events such as Typhoon Haiyan, Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Maria, Hurricane Irma and Michael represent examples of extreme weather events that had devastating effects on communities. Weick and Sutcliffe (Managing the unexpected: resilient performance in an age of uncertainty, 2nd edn. Wiley, San Francisco, 2007) argue that ‘Unexpected events often audit our resilience. Everything that was left unattended becomes a complex problem and every weakness comes rushing to the forefront.’ In the Chatham House report ‘Preparing for High Impact, Low Probability Events’, Lee et al. (Preparing for high-impact, low-probability events; lessons from Eyjafjallajokull. Chatham House Report, 2012:vii) ‘…found that governments and businesses remain unprepared for such events … the frequency of ‘high-impact, low-probability’ (HILP) events in the last decade signals the emergence of a new ‘normal’. Extreme weather and climate related events pose serious public health threats to vulnerable communities and has resulted in mass migrations and displacements; creating what some refer to as ‘climate refugees’. Threats and consequences stemming from climate related events are transboundary and transnational and thereby emerge as a global health security concern. Scenario planning provides a key ‘leverage point’ in managing (mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery) such disaster consequences by illuminating the space of possibilities regarding impact and vulnerabilities. To do so requires a framework to help characterize the challenges associated with the impact of climate related disasters.