Monthly Archives: December 2018

The countries most at risk of humanitarian disaster in 2019

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The International Rescue Committee (IRC) has identified Yemen, Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Sudan,Afghanistan and Venezuela as the countries most at risk for major humanitarian crises going into 2019.

David Miliband, president and CEO of the IRC, said these countries are the “best evidence of the world’s fragility.”

The next five countries on the most at-risk list are Central African Republic, Syria, Nigeria, Ethiopia, and Somalia.

Miliband told Axios that one of the things that keeps him up at night is that the “traditional sources of compassion and humanitarian assistance in the West are turning their back on these people.”

According to Miliband, the political climate in the U.S. with respect to refugees “has gone from relatively benign, to quite toxic.”

[Axios]

Refugee teens in Austrian schools straddle different worlds

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Lilas Almalaki didn’t know a word of German when she enrolled in an Austrian middle school two months after fleeing her war-torn homeland in 2015, so she relied on the proficient English she learned as a top student in Syria to keep the bullies in place.

Hassan Husseini didn’t speak German either and had never spent a day in a classroom when he arrived as an Afghan refugee the same year. He had a tougher time when picked on.

Despite their differences, the two teens share the same challenge. Like the nearly 10,000 other school-age children who arrived in Austria during Europe’s largest modern influx of refugees, school is where they must learn to bridge different worlds: one that has shaped their families and identities, and the other where they hope to prosper in peace.

Immigration and the integration of 2.5 million people who the European Union says sought asylum in 2015 and 2016 are issues across Europe. On the front lines are the schools, where teachers, administrators, psychologists and parents are clashing over the future of the next generation.

“The children are living in two worlds,” says Andrea Walach, the principal at Hassan’s middle school in Vienna, where only seven of more than 200 students speak German at home. “One world is school … but when they are at home, all of this is forgotten.”

51 percent of the quarter-million students in Vienna’s schools speak languages other than German in their daily life, according a 2018 report.

That number goes up to more than 70 percent in vocational middle schools like Hassan’s, pathways to apprenticeships in trades that must accept anyone who applies.

[Associated Press]

Warming and melting Arctic has ‘cascading effects’ around the globe

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In the year 2018, surface air temperatures in the Arctic continued to warm at roughly twice the rate relative to the rest of the globe. It was the second warmest year, second only to 2016, on record in the Arctic since 1900, at +1.7 C relative to the long-term average between 1981 and 2010. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) 2018 Arctic Report Card was released on Tuesday, Dec. 11, at the American Geophysical Union fall meeting.

The report includes a series of 14 essays written by more than 80 scientists from 12 countries. “This report will also help guide NOAA’s priorities in better understanding the role of the Arctic in climate change and extreme weather; sustaining and growing fisheries; and supporting adaptation and economic opportunities in the region,” said Retired Navy Rear Adm. Timothy Gallaudet, Ph.D., acting undersecretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere at NOAA.

This year’s report shows that the Arctic region experienced the second-highest air temperatures ever recorded, the second-lowest overall sea-ice coverage, lowest recorded winter ice in the Bering Sea and earlier plankton blooms due to early melting of sea ice in the Bering Sea. The Arctic Ocean has lost 95 percent of its oldest, thickest ice. In 2018, Arctic sea ice remained younger and thinner and covered less area than in the past.

“When I look at the report, one of the big takeaways from this year is that it really shows how interconnected things are,” Dr. Donald Perovich, professor at the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College, said at the press conference. “We’re really starting to see cascading effects that we don’t fully understand.”

[AccuWeather]

Marine heat waves, drought and heavy rains all bore the fingerprints of climate change

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Climate change isn’t just exacerbating extreme weather. Some events wouldn’t happen without it, according to a major scientific report just released.

They include a marine heat wave in the Tasman Sea off the coast of Australia last year. Ocean temperatures soared 2.5 degrees Celsius (or about 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit) above normal. The record-breaking event would have been “virtually impossible” without human-caused climate change, according to the report, published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.

It’s the second year in a row that researchers found that climbing temperatures are causing events that otherwise wouldn’t exist.

The report includes studies of 16 extreme weather events occurring in 2017, conducted by more than 100 scientists from around the world. In each case, the events were subjected to an attribution analysis—a special kind of study that determines whether, and to what extent, climate change has influenced an individual weather event. These attribution studies typically use models to simulate conditions with and without the existence of climate change.

This year, a majority—although not all—of the studied events were found to have been influenced by climate change.

[Scientific American]

Fate of humanity weighing heavy on ministerial shoulders at UN Climate Change Conference

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Government Ministers gathering in Poland will need extreme courage and conviction to make life-saving decisions if humanity is to be saved from the worst impacts of climate change, Oxfam and CARE International said.

Despite it forming the key scientific input to this year’s UN Climate Change Conference, COP24, a handful of countries blocked inclusion of the report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), leaving it to ministers to ensure the report is put back into the heart of conference outcomes.

Sven Harmeling, CARE’s Global Policy Lead on Climate Change and Resilience, said: “The landmark science report on 1.5°C has shown that we need immediate action to reduce emissions now, not in the future. This week, we expect ministers to no longer hide behind the inaction of the United States and Saudi Arabia, to no longer stay silent, but to speak up for both agreed rules on implementing the Paris Agreement and enhanced national action plans. This is essential to lead us towards roughly halving emissions by 2030 compared to today.”

Kristen Hite, Oxfam Climate Change Policy Lead, said: “It’s unacceptable that despite the clear findings of the IPCC governments are still refusing to see the writing on the wall … There is real energy and leadership amongst from states, but how many more people need to die from drought-induced hunger or thirst before everyone agrees to limit global warming? How many more communities should burn, or drown?”

Oxfam and CARE are also calling on governments to agree on strict accounting rules which ensure that only dedicated funding for real climate action gets counted towards the $100 billion per year which developing countries have been promised.

[CARE/Oxfam]

Climate Change Conference in Poland

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A wide range of scientists, engineers and thinkers agree that we have the technological capacity to stem global warming, keeping temperatures below the 1.5°C target that scientists warn would bring some of the most catastrophic impacts of climate change.

This is the challenge that has drawn thousands of politicians, policymakers, scientists and advocates from around the world here to Katowice, Poland, this month for the most significant United Nations climate conference since the landmark gathering that resulted in the Paris Agreement in 2015. The more than 20,000 people assembled in this industrial city at the heart of Polish coal industry will play a pivotal role keeping the Paris Agreement on track to help reduce global greenhouse gas emissions, leading climate officials say. Failure could derail the delicate multilateral process that has taken decades to reach this point.

“After three years we’re still negotiating the work plan to deliver on the Paris Agreement,” María Fernanda Espinosa, president of the U.N. General Assembly, tells TIME. “We really need some political traction and some real commitment.”

The key issue at hand is the so-called rulebook, a technical document that lays out how countries report on their progress to address climate change. Do developing countries have to abide by the same standards as their wealthy counterparts? How can we ensure that the reporting is transparent? The questions may sound simple, but they’re enough to flummox seasoned climate policy experts whose views vary wildly.

And, climate negotiators warn that if the rulebook doesn’t come together, countries may not be willing to commit to take bigger steps to reduce their emissions.

[TIME]

South Sudan’s man-made crisis

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Since gaining its independence from Sudan in 2011, South Sudan has struggled to fulfill the promise of a new nation, eventually descending into civil war in late 2013. The country continues to bear the devastating human and financial costs of a complex conflict with ever-changing armed and political actors.

South Sudan has received significant humanitarian aid from the United States and the international community for decades. Since 2011, total humanitarian funding surpassed $9.5 billion. Aid organizations face an array of humanitarian access constraints while working to address the acute needs of 7 million people, roughly half of the country.

Since 2013, more than 4 million South Sudanese, or approximately 1 in 3 of its citizens, 85 percent of whom are women and children, have been forced from home. Of the 7 million people currently in need of humanitarian aid, 5.3 million are food insecure. A recent study showed that the conflict has led to almost 400,000 deaths since late 2013.

Although there is cause for cautious optimism after a peace agreement was signed in September 2018, these humanitarian needs will only grow in the absence of sustainable peace and a political solution to the man-made crisis in South Sudan.

[Center for Strategic and International Studies]

Rescue ship forced to terminate operations in Mediterranean

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European policies and obstruction tactics have forced the international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and its partner SOS Méditerranée to terminate the lifesaving operations carried out by the search and rescue vessel Aquarius, the last dedicated rescue boat operating in the Central Mediterranean.

“This is a dark day,” said Nelke Manders, MSF’s general director. “Not only has Europe failed to provide search and rescue capacity, it has also actively sabotaged others’ attempts to save lives. The end of Aquarius means more deaths at sea, and more needless deaths that will go unwitnessed.”

Over the past two months, with people continuing to flee by sea along the world’s deadliest migration route, the Aquarius has remained in port in Marseille, unable to carry out its humanitarian work. This is the result of a sustained campaign, spearheaded by the Italian government and backed by other European states, to delegitimize, slander, and obstruct aid organizations providing assistance to vulnerable people. Coupled with the European Union’s (EU) ill-conceived external policies on migration, this campaign has undermined international law and humanitarian principles. With no immediate solution to these attacks, MSF and SOS Méditerranée have no choice but to end the Aquarius’ operations.

The forced end to the Aquarius’ operations happens at a critical time: an estimated 2,133 people have died in the Mediterranean in 2018, with departures from Libya accounting for the overwhelming majority of deaths.

“Today, Europe is directly supporting forced returns while claiming successes on migration,” said Karline Kleijer, MSF’s head of emergencies. “Let’s be clear about what that success means: a lack of lifesaving assistance at sea; children, women, and men pushed back to arbitrary detention with virtually no hope of escape. … As long as people are drowning and trapped in Libya, MSF remains committed to finding ways to provide them with medical and humanitarian care.”

Since the start of its search and rescue program in February 2016, the Aquarius has assisted nearly 30,000 people in international waters between Libya, Italy, and Malta.

[MSF]

Nearly 4,000 migrants have died trying to get to the US

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Associated Press revealed that nearly 4,000 migrants, including asylum seekers and refugees, have died or gone missing along the route through Mexico toward the U.S. border in the past four years.

Associated Press pointed out that even its own number is “likely low,” with bodies being likely to have been lost in the desert, or families being reluctant to report their missing loved ones if they planned on entering the U.S. or other countries illegally.

The thousands of predominantly Central American migrants who have died or gone missing on the journey to the U.S. are among 56,800 people—including refugees and asylum seekers—worldwide who have died or disappeared since 2014, the AP has found in a separate report. That number is almost double the count found in the world’s only official attempt by the United Nation’s International Organization for Migration (IOM).

The AP has said it compiled its data from information from international groups, forensic records, death records, missing persons’ reports and data examination from thousands of interviews with asylum seekers.

According to a Missing Migrants Project, a joint research project by IOM’s Global Migration Data Analysis Center (GMDAC) and Media and Communications Division (MCD),  in the area around the U.S.-Mexico border, the Missing Migrants Project recorded 364 deaths in 2018 alone. The AP’s estimates suggest that those numbers, however, are likely higher.

[Newsweek]

Conflict and hunger fuel each other

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The number of conflicts has risen in the past decade, particularly in countries already facing high levels of food insecurity, so has the scale of conflict-related hunger. In 2017, conflict and related violence were the primary drivers of food insecurity in 18 countries.

People living in areas affected by conflict are three times more likely to be undernourished than those living in more stable developing countries.

On average, in countries affected by conflict, 56% of the population live in rural areas where livelihoods largely depend on agriculture.

Some parties to a conflict deliberately deny humanitarian assistance or target humanitarian workers and assets. In the worst cases, conflict actors have actively targeted civilians’ food access, agriculture and productive assets. The return of famine and near-famine conditions in several countries in recent years is a direct consequence of growing conflict and a disregard for international norms.

The gravity of this situation led the UN Security Council to act. The landmark United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 2417, unanimously adopted on 24 May 2018, strongly condemns the starvation of civilians as a method of warfare and the unlawful denial of humanitarian access.

Addressing the underlying causes of hunger and supporting resilient small-scale agriculture can contribute to stabilization and recovery.

[ReliefWeb]