Amid Haiyan's howling winds, a global wake-up call

The cool, grey winter skies here in Poland match the sombre mood inside the National Stadium where climate negotiations are being held in the capital, as news of the devastation wrought by Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines unfolds in the world media. 

Heart-wrenching images of death and destruction convey the toll inflicted by the super-typhoon on the Filipino people: A father, his face gaunt with grief, carrying the body of his lifeless six-year-old daughter in his arms. Survivors desperately searching for food and water amid the debris and piles of dead bodies. Women and children, wet and shivering, forming a long, winding line at the airport in a frantic attempt to catch a ride to a safer place. 

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Typhoon Haiyan has displaced more than four million people and disrupted the lives of more than 13 million. The government reports the death toll has passed 4,000 and is still climbing, with 18,175 injured and 1,598 missing. The government estimates the damage to the economy at more than 10.3 billion Philippine pesos (Bt7.5 billion). The bulk of this damage (9.08 billion pesos) is to agriculture and will have grave and long-lasting repercussions on the food security and livelihoods of the survivors. These are all initial reports. The full extent of typhoon Haiyan’s damage to life and property will become clearer in the days to come. 

Philippine climate negotiators in Warsaw felt a sense of deja vu as they witnessed the scale of Haiyan’s destruction. Last year, during the UN Climate Change negotiations in Doha, they were anxious about typhoon Pablo, which was leaving a trail of destruction across the Philippines’ southernmost island, Mindanao. A year earlier, in 2011, they saw their country pummelled by typhoon Washi. These recent storms have all arrived a few weeks before Christmas, outside the country’s annual typhoon season. And they hit landfall with an intensity that overwhelmed preparations made by the government and local communities. 

So, does these unusual meteorological conditions represent the “new normal” for the Philippines and other countries in the region? Over the last few years, countries in Southeast Asia have reeled under the impact of more intense typhoons, storms, droughts, rains and floods. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has noted the link between climate change and changes in the “frequency, duration, timing and intensity extreme weather and climate events”. 

In the days following Haiyan’s passage across the Philippines, the UN launched an appeal for $301 million in aid to help those devastated by the super-typhoon. The help is now starting to arrive as governments, international development and non-government organisations along with the private sector allocate resources. All these are welcome, and renew faith and hope in the collective ability of people around the world to respond to human suffering and loss. 

However, there needs to be a strategic response to the growing frequency of extreme-weather events that helps avert their devastating impact on people and communities. If there is one message ringing loud and clear in the aftermath of Haiyan, it is the need for the world to address climate change and the extreme weather events it brings. 

In his opening speech in Warsaw, leader of the Philippine delegation Yeb Sano made a tearful plea for governments to stop the ongoing crisis by committing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to a level that science dictates is necessary to avert catastrophic climate change. 

Governments’ willingness and readiness to make the necessary political decisions in Warsaw will give the world the chance to address this global problem. These decisions include:

l Commitments to reduce climate inducing greenhouse gas emissions before 2020.

l A clear pathway towards an agreement on a fair, ambitious and binding global climate deal by 2015.

I That developed countries allocate the necessary funds to help developing countries adapt to changing climate patterns and contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emission reductions. 

l Movement towards the implementation of an international mechanism that will address loss and damage in developing countries due to climate change.

 I Climate action in agriculture that supports adaptation, food security and sustainable development, especially in developing countries. 

Asean must take an active role in ensuring that the Warsaw meeting delivers concrete outcomes that will help its members address the challenges of climate change. The fact that its members – in particular the Philippines, Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand – are bearing the brunt of extreme weather events signals the need for Asean to take a more active role in ongoing climate negotiations. 

Unless the world addresses this global crisis, the Philippines and its Southeast Asian neighbours will be prey to ever more frequent and more devastating climate-related disasters. Here in Warsaw, the world has the chance to stop this from happening.

 

Riza Bernabe is regional policy and research coordinator for Oxfam’s East Asia GROW Campaign.