Interconnected disasters ‘the tip of the iceberg’

Extreme events are increasingly compounding each other, even if they initially seem wide apart and unconnected, making it more crucial to tackle their root causes, says a report.

TheInterconnected Disaster Risks联合国学术部门联合国大学的报告重点是2020 - 21年全球10次灾难。其中包括亚马逊大火，越南的洪水，孟加拉国和印度的飓风Amphan，以及多个国家以及Covid-19的蝗虫爆发以及北极热浪。

“The world witnessed a number of record-breaking disasters that showed us clearer than ever before how interconnected we are,” says the report. Tackling them in “fragmented, isolated and insular ways” is no longer tenable, it adds.

While it is already known that many events are interconnected, homing in on a limited set shows the links more explicitly, says Jack O’Connor, an author of the report and senior scientist at UNU’s Institute for Environment and Human Security.

“What we want to do with this report is to get people to see disasters more not as isolated events, but as the tip of an iceberg.”

Jack O’Connor, senior scientist, UNU Institute for Environment and Human Security

他说：“我们想处理的这份报告是为了让人们看到灾难更多地不是孤立的事件，而是冰山一角。”“如果您在下面进行挖掘，您会发现它们确实是由这些具有模式的大型系统和结构引起的。”

Finding connections

The report highlights both the knock-on effect of one disaster on others, and similarities in root causes. The most common causes were identified as insufficient risk management and undervaluation of environmental costs in decision-making, as well as climate change.

One event covered by the report – the extinction of the Chinese paddlefish – shared similar root causes with the destruction caused by Cyclone Amphan, in that dam building in both cases had consequences for nature and people, undermining ecosystems downstream.

The paddlefish extinction also shared similarities with Amazon fires, says O’Connor, as both resulted partially from landscape interventions to harness economically valuable resources. In the case of the Amazon, trees were cut down for agriculture, resulting in declining local rainfall and worsening fires.

反过来,森林砍伐与西方需求for meat, and has a knock-on effect on climate change, exacerbating extreme events elsewhere in the world, says the report.

“The scale of the interconnection, when you really look into it, is surprising even for us,” says O’Connor, referring to scientists studying the phenomenon.

COVID-19 has also illustrated how multiple hazards can undermine well-established measures to mitigate disasters. For example, says O’Connor, the pandemic reduced the effectiveness of预警系统during Cyclone Amphan, complicating storm preparedness including moving people to shelters. COVID-19 also affected the ability of Vietnam to deal with last year’s floods.

Root of the problem

This all makes it important to tackle root causes in an integrated way to achieve multiple benefits rather than solving single problems, says the report.

“When you’re trying to plan for the unexpected, you have to use a systems-thinking approach,” says O’Connor. “Planning for what we’ve already seen is not going to be enough.”

He adds that these consequences are essential to consider when solutions to issues can simultaneously have highly damaging environmental effects. For example, hydropower dams,which many countries in the global South plan to buildin the coming years, provide renewable energy but can also have devastating environmental impacts.

The report highlights the need to consider and mitigate “the trade-offs for clean energy, irrigation, water supply, ecosystem quality and biodiversity” in an interdisciplinary way.

孟加拉国达卡国际气候变化与发展中心主任Saleemul Huq同意，专注于相互联系的问题很重要。他说：“我相信世界正在进入人类引起的气候变化的损失和损害时代，我们都需要共同解决这个问题。”

在巴西,一个的阿伦卡尔,科学主任有限公司untry’s Amazon Environmental Research Institute, says a lack of political will to fight processes such as deforestation hampers the country’s ability to deal with interconnected events. “Understanding of the importance of the Amazon to Brazilians and the world, and the connection with meat consumption, food prices and other things alike is very important,” she said.

Need to strengthen

Strengthening networks for sharing prevention and response experiences between countries, and mechanisms for international cooperation and allocation of funds, is critical says Tran Si Pha, head of the disaster management department at the Vietnam Red Cross Society.

他说，国家一级也有必要改善地方之间“缺乏同步”，他说，在2020年越南洪水期间，这种情况恶化了。

“Each country is a part of global development and everyone needs to join hands to deal with such international interconnected challenges,” adds Pha. “We remain optimistic and believe in the potential for cooperation between organisations and governments in the world to overcome these disasters.”

This piece was produced by SciDev.Net’s Global desk.