https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/opinion/climate-crisis-nature-solutions-b2094265.html

 

Building resilience among communities vulnerable to the effects of human-induced climate change means employing life-saving, nature-based solutions.

 

There can be no doubt that the climate crisis is here, right now. In parts of northwest India and Pakistan, temperatures recently reached a record-breaking 51C during heatwaves made 100 times more likely by the climate crisis. As a result, hospital admissions for heat-related incidents have increased by a staggering 20 per cent.

In parts of Bangladesh, human-induced climate change is driving floods that have led to major food shortages. Many communities have been completely submerged, leaving many dead and more than two million stranded. The United Nations says that more than 1.5 million children in the country are at increased risk of waterborne diseases, drowning and malnutrition due to the floods.

In Australia, bushfires in 2020 killed or displaced nearly three billion animals. Over the past three years, the country has also been gripped by drought, cyclones and freak tides, which in turn has led to climate change becoming a key concern for citizens.

These are just a few examples of a worrying trend. Over the last 20 years, natural disasters linked to the climate crisis have increased by 40 per cent. Sudden onset, climate-related disasters, such as droughts and floods, have killed around 410,000 people in the last decade, and nine in 10 of the people who lost their lives due to such hazards were in the developing world.

As research from the Stockholm Environment Institute neatly summed up ahead of Stockholm+50, which marks 50 years since the first global conference on the environment took place in the Swedish capital, the world is at boiling point. And with global greenhouse emissions continuing to rise and reach record-breaking levels in the atmosphere, the frequency and severity of climate-related disasters will only worsen.