The Right to Survive: The Humanitarian Challenge for the Twenty-First Century

Each year, on average, almost 250 million people are affected by ‘natural’
disasters.1 In a typical year between 1998 and 2007, 98 per cent of them
suffered from climate-related disasters such as droughts and floods rather
than, for example, devastating but relatively rare events such as
earthquakes. According to new research for this report, by 2015 this could
grow by more than 50 per cent to an average of over 375 million affected
by climate-related disasters each year.

Any such projection is not an exact science, but it is clear that
substantially more people may be affected by disasters in the very near,
not just distant, future, as climate change and environmental
mismanagement create a proliferation of droughts, landslides, floods and
other local disasters. And more people will be vulnerable to them because
of their poverty and location.

Some of these environmental changes will also increase the threat of new
conflicts, which will mean more people displaced, and more need for
humanitarian aid. One recent report estimated that 46 countries will face
a ‘high risk of violent conflict’ when climate change exacerbates
traditional security threats. Already, there is evidence that the number of
conflicts is again on the rise, while the threat of long-running conflicts
creating vast new humanitarian demands was painfully shown by the
upsurge of violence in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo in 2008.

In short, by 2015, an unprecedented level of need for humanitarian
assistance could overwhelm the world’s current humanitarian capacity.
Already, many governments fail to cope with threats like storms, floods
and earthquakes. They fail to act quickly or effectively enough in response
to these events, or to take preventative action to reduce unnecessary
deaths and suffering. Indeed, the very actions of some governments and
their national elites place marginalised people at risk from disasters by
discriminating against them, like those forced to live in flimsy slum
housing so easily destroyed by floods and landslips.

At the same time, international humanitarian assistance is often too slow
or inappropriate, and the UN-led reforms since 2005 to improve it have
only begun to make a difference.