Climate crisis demands a relook at our approach

Intense climate-related disasters—floods, cyclones, droughts, and heat waves—have been on the rise worldwide. The rate of climate-induced disasters is doubling every decade, and this has led to an exponential rise in the number of people affected and in need of assistance.

Even though the climate change threat was recognized decades ago (IPCC, 1990), responses have remained weak despite the changing nature of risks. In other words, disaster risk reduction is one of the great challenges of development and the current and past efforts to tackle these issues are insufficient.

Thus, taking a fresh perspective on disaster management is a fruitful starting point for such an effort.

The problem

India is now among the top ten countries facing impacts of climate change in the world (Germanwatch, 2020) but our approach to managing disasters and risks has largely remained centered around the colonial era famine code.

Traditionally, disasters are dealt based on the situation at hand which involves providing immediate relief and recovery, logistical support, compensatory payments etc.

The invisible secondary effects such as displacement, human trafficking, rights abuse and abject poverty never get accounted for in disaster losses. In the battle against climate crisis, the first thing to accept is that reactive approach to disasters is no longer an ambitious enough goal.

This conventional method is inefficient, doesn’t allow for flexibility and puts stakeholders who are working towards a common goal in silos. We need to take a step back and look at how we deal with uncertainty and build resilience for the future.

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The solution

Although there are plenty of oraganisations fighting the battle out there, there are limitations in acting alone and challenges in the existing top-down approach. Community-based processes are the need of the hour, and organisations need to create an ecosystem of prevention, adaptation and preparedness.

The role of affected communities in assessing and managing risks is crucial to the process. Disaster risks can be significantly minimised and losses substantially reduced by enabling local bodies to undertake planned interventions.

Advance planning and the implementation of appropriate mitigation strategies can significantly reduce the drudgery and cost of rescue, relief, resettlement and reconstruction.

A bottom-up approach is primarily by and for the people in disaster-prone areas. It’s essential to keep in mind that communities are knowledgeable about the disasters that occur and can anticipate their effects.

Community participation in the development and implementation of mitigation strategies ensures ownership which contributes to their sustainability. Their local experience and indigenous knowledge is a resource to be recognised to aid in mitigation.

Multiple international studies on community-based disaster risk management (CBDRM) approaches have provided evidence on efficacy of community-based processes in reducing dependence on post-disaster relief assistance.

Lessons learnt

The state of Odisha is a perfect example as it experiences drastic cyclones every year. Through decentralised grassroots efforts and participation of communities, they have managed to control the risks and shown remarkable results.

Together with NGOs and community-based organisations, local governments have been able to reduce mortality rates. After the 1999 super cyclone that claimed 10,000 lives in the state, they have managed to reduce losses in the following decade.

The whole-of-society approach encouraged community-based organisations to proactively act on warnings and invest in long term mitigation efforts (UNDRR, 2020).

But such efforts need to be implemented in other parts of India as well, as the number of disasters are increasing exponentially.

A recent in-house research found that there are at least 200 climate hotspots that will put the lives of more than 300 million people at risk by 2030. This creates an urgent need for appropriate plans and response to disaster risk reduction.