Examination of Witnesses (Questions 260-274)
DR CAMILLA
TOULMIN AND
DR SALEEMUL
HUQ
11 JULY 2006
Q260 Chairman: You talk about the
Sahel and the extension of desertification and migration. You
have also mentioned wells and various preventative measures to
be taken, but the net effect is that it is not cost-free; people
have had to migrate. That appears to be a retreat in the face
of environmental change—I accept you say that that is not
entirely a retreat—as opposed to a concerted effort to deal
with it. What if anything can we do to halt this process?
Dr Toulmin: The Sahel is a particularly
good example, if one is interested in looking at some of the long-term
impacts of climate change and how local communities have adapted.
What one sees is a whole set of adaptive processes led by people
themselves with little or nothing from government, with the focus
on improving local management of resources particularly in relation
to soil and water conservation, so that whatever rain does fall
can be captured and used most effectively. We see a lot of really
innovative practices in terms of clever micro-catchment and water
management, combined with long-distance migration from much of
the Sahel, often by parts of families to wetter areas, in particular
to Côte d'Ivoire with many of the attendant difficulties
and examples of civil strife that are now apparent. Therefore,
there is a process of adaptation which in some sense has been
successful, in that people have survived and they are still managing
to grow crops in dry areas, but with quite damaging costs in terms
of some of the social and political tensions engendered by it.
Q261 John Barrett: When looking at
the humanitarian response to natural disasters more and more governments,
donors and aid agencies are aware, for instance, of the impact
of food supply on local markets. One does not want to have heavy
trucks going in and destroying the roads. But do you believe that
the impact of humanitarian aid on the environment is creeping
up the agenda? This is something of which we are aware, but we
appear to have greater awareness of the impact on water and sanitation
projects, food supplies and local markets. Do you agree that for
a variety of reasons the environment does not seem to be creeping
up the agenda? Do you believe that the actors or players are now
looking at this as part of their strategy, or whatever they are
doing in response to natural disasters?
Dr Toulmin: I do not believe that
we have looked specifically at, say, the hinterland of big settlement
camps, but I can well imagine that it must be pretty devastating.
That is not something we have looked at in particular.
Q262 John Barrett: Certainly, after
a major disaster there is a huge impact by the aid community.
I just wonder whether that is on the agenda along with all the
other things that appear to be fairly detailed and analysed so
they do not have an adverse impact.
Dr Huq: My impression is that
that does not happen very much, particularly the environmental
impacts, because much of the emergency humanitarian response perhaps
tends to be very short-term and, therefore, environmental impacts
which might be of a longer-term nature do not get picked up during
the course of the evaluation. But to my knowledge it has not been
done. I know of one case where we had a large number of refugees
coming over from Burma into Bangladesh. There was a major environmental
impact in terms of deforestation of the hill tracts in Chittagong
in southern Bangladesh where a large number of people settled.
Dr Toulmin: In places like northern
Uganda where people, sadly, have been in the camps for up to 19
years presumably there are whole areas of land that have not been
used at all and will require quite a lot of investment to bring
them back into productive farming.
Q263 Chairman: To add a footnote,
in Malawi where there have been recurrent famines the point was
made to us that food aid enabled people to say, "Well, when
there is a bad year food aid will come in", and yet we had
discussions about the fact that people subsist on maize, which
is not an indigenous crop, and do not regard anything else as
food. Therefore, mangos rot on the trees and people are malnourished.
Cassava is also available but people do not see why they should
eat it. One feels that sometimes simply by saying that maize is
coming in from, say, the World Food Programme or whatever may
perpetuate a problem which at least in part could be solved within
country?
Dr Toulmin: Indeed. One sees in
a lot of countries increasingly the replacement of diverse coarse
grains such as sorghum, millet, manioc and others, which are locally
much more appropriate in terms of farming conditions, by maize
and rice. That is certainly so in the Sahel. That makes the area
very much more dependent on outside sources.
Q264 Mr Hunt: You referred to climate
change as a way to highlight good development practice. I thought
that you were talking about a rather stronger relationship between
climate change and development. At one time there was perceived
to be a conflict between environmental objectives and developmental
objectives. Now what most people believe is that if we do not
address climate change we will see a massive increase in the number
of natural disasters, those with a rapid onset like tsunamis and
those with a slow-onset like famine in the horn of Africa or the
desertification that we have been talking about. Do you believe
that the world's failure to make progress towards the Kyoto targets
will mean a significant increase in the number of disasters that
we are likely to face?
Dr Toulmin: We most definitely
do. You will have noted that our organisation is the International
Institute for Environment and Development. We see development
as being increasingly jeopardised by not tackling environmental
issues. The issue of climate change is of particular significance
because it hits everything, but other environmental issues are
obviously of more localised significance.
Dr Huq: You will recall that I
gave evidence to the Committee a couple of years ago during its
hearings into climate change. Subsequently, DFID has funded a
research programme on climate change and also other things like
the adaptation fund. Perhaps one matter that is relevant here
and of which we have not heard enough is mainstreaming the notion
of climate change into regular work, not thinking of it as something
that needs more research because we know that it will happen in
the future but do not need to worry about it immediately. I do
not believe that that is the case any more. The evidence emerging
from the scientific community increasingly demonstrates that we
are already living in a world of climate change and, therefore,
the past is no longer a sufficient guide to the future. We will
have to incorporate climatic shifts into all the kinds of things
we are doing. Humanitarian disasters are a particularly good example
of that. They simply cannot afford to ignore climate change any
more and must incorporate that in their humanitarian work and
response strategies, particularly those that are climate-related
disasters.
Q265 Mr Hunt: Are you able to quantify
this? In terms of mobilising public opinion, it would be very
helpful if there was research which said that, whereas 30 years
ago we might have expected one tsunami every 200 years, we can
now expect one every 50 years, the incidence of famine has increased
and so on. Do you have any evidence or research to show the increase
in the frequency of natural disasters?
Dr Huq: Quite a lot of research
is taking place on a variety of fronts with respect to observing
climate changes. As you know, the evidence is compiled every few
years under the aegis of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change. That panel is currently preparing its fourth assessment
report which is due out in April of next year. I am lead author
of one of the chapters, but until the report comes out we are
not supposed to disclose what it will say. One of the differences
that the fourth assessment will identify compared with previous
ones is that now it will have quite a lot of observational data,
whereas in the past it said that a number of things would happen
if we did not do certain things; it was all based on model projections.
Now there are observations. From the information compiled so far
on chapters that consider a whole variety of ecosystems from the
polar regions to the tropics and look at hurricanes and drought-prone
and flood-prone areas, the events observed over the last decade
of the 20th century compared with the previous nine decades of
that century are way off the charts. The only explanation cumulatively
is that climate change is already happening. One cannot attribute
a single event to climate change, for example Hurricane Katrina
or a drought in Africa, but cumulatively there is a very strong
signal. More and more scientists are willing to attribute it to
that cause and say that climate change is happening. Therefore,
the one in 50-year flood is likely to be a one in 20-year flood,
and a one in 20-year flood is likely to be one in 10 or one in
five. But in order to determine that one needs a lot of observational
data. It is only with hindsight that one can say things have changed,
but it is easier to predict that these events will become more
frequent.
Dr Toulmin: We have the advantage
of Nick Stern's review on the economics of climate change which
will come out some time in October. All of us are very much looking
forward to seeing how much of that hard evidence can be pulled
together to start putting some figures on different pathways and
the cost of "business as usual" and the cost of addressing
climate change in various ways in terms of investing in a lower
carbon economy, which I believe is increasingly vital if we are
to make any progress with the MDGs and other development objectives.
Q266 Joan Ruddock: I just spent a
weekend with parliamentarians from G8 plus five countries. What
was so striking when one raised the issue of climate change was
that within developing countries there was virtually no access
to information. When one talks about mainstreaming one is considering
donor thinking, but tragically the people who might ask for the
programmes, be partners in them and might be trying desperately
to bring about their own development plans do not have information.
How on earth can we tackle that issue, and where is our responsibility
in that respect?
Dr Huq: That is a very big issue,
and in a small way it is one of the things that our climate change
programme in IIED tries to address with partners in developing
countries, focusing particularly on the 50 poorest and least developed
countries in the world. Under the Framework Convention they are
recognised as being very vulnerable along with the island states.
We are working with partners in those countries to enhance their
understanding of the issues and availability of information and
provide it to governments, civil society and vulnerable communities
in those countries, but there is still a long way to go. The level
of awareness is rising, but the next step—what to do about
it—is still missing. They need information and advice on
what they should be thinking about and planning to do, and that
is a big gap which needs to be addressed. That is a particular
avenue which donors like DFID could support, but if they wait
for the recipient to ask for it, it will not happen. This is one
case where a little bit of donor-driven agenda-setting might be
appropriate given that this is a long-term problem. It is not
seen as an immediate short-term issue when they speak to their
counterparts in the finance ministries of the countries; they
do not see climate change as an immediate problem because they
have many other things on their plate for which they want assistance.
One may try to persuade them that this is a matter that they should
now start to think about in order not to jeopardise future development.
Dr Toulmin: This is relevant when
one is thinking about investment in energy systems to see how
one can get particularly LDCs[6]
in Africa onto much more sustainable energy pathways. The reason
why I say that climate change is such a useful tool for us is
that it permeates absolutely everything. Equally, it permeates
the enormous growth in urban population that we are likely to
see over the next 20 or 30 years. It is a useful tool if that
urban population is to be handled in a way that provides long-term
low-carbon urban settlements with transport and energy systems
that make sense and if it is to be in a situation which reduces
its vulnerability to the sorts of climate-related risks that will
emerge. There is an enormous investment agenda, whether it is
in urban areas, energy or transport, and I do not believe that
people have yet got their heads round it.
Q267 Joan Ruddock: Are you confident
that there is enough science behind it? The people to whom I spoke—they
included South Africans who obviously are relatively much better
resourced in terms of the science base—felt that there was
insufficient predictability in linking climate change with vulnerability
to natural disasters. Globally, it was understood but when it
came to country-specific tasks what would you recommend? What
would you describe as the threat that the particular nation faces?
Dr Huq: That is the gap. I believe
that at the global level it is well recognised and understood
and the evidence is overwhelming. The ability to localise that
in terms of particular places, regions, countries, cities or communities
is still missing. A lot of work is going on and there are now
much more local and much better models, but it is not necessarily
a matter of predicting what is going to happen; it is more a matter
of giving a view that things are likely to become more risky in
terms of climate change. Therefore, any kind of risk-reducing
strategy is what one should be thinking about in terms of climate-proofing.
There are things that one can do without having a particular prediction
that, say, there will be a flood in exactly three years from now.
But we know that there will be more floods and therefore flood
protection and preparation is a useful investment in terms of
both helping now as well as improving conditions in future. Further,
obviously from the perspective of our planet change to take a
low-carbon versus a high-carbon path makes sense when looking
for alternatives in terms of investment in transport and energy
infrastructure. It can inform investment decisions even now with
the level of information that we have, and obviously we need to
improve it. Climate change is a long-term, not a short-term, problem.
Therefore, one of the best investments we can make in the short
to medium term is just to have the capacity to understand it at
local level within countries so they do not depend on the IPCC
for a report every five years to tell them what is going to happen
but are able to monitor conditions themselves and make judgments
as to what they need to be doing on a continuous basis.
Q268 John Battle: I think that it
is the connecting of the long to the short-terms that worries
me, but it is also about connecting environment to development.
Some of the Committee recently visited Pakistan and looked at
the work of rehabilitation following the earthquake. The work
being done was impressive, but I kept asking myself perhaps the
perverse question: how did this help bring villages in Kashmir
closer to meeting the targets set in the Millennium Development
Goals? Are we just rebuilding what they had before? Can a disaster
be used as a catalyst to development? Sixteen years ago this week
I went to the Philippines where a terrible earthquake had occurred.
Everybody has now forgotten about it. Five months later there
was a typhoon which was the equivalent of a tsunami. More people
died there than in Kashmir, but that is forgotten about. Someone
told me recently that we still have not moved on in terms of development.
Do you see any chance of the crises resulting from great earthquakes
and tsunamis creating within the UN a dynamic for development,
or does the UN just respond to those crises and see them as a
separate agenda, almost an environmental one, and then move back
when there is a bit of space to the development agenda? Do you
see a thread whereby if a crisis emerges we can grasp it as an
opportunity for development, including shunting along girls in
school, new sustainable employment projects and maybe new agricultural
approaches? Is that on the agenda?
Dr Toulmin: Absolutely. Following
the tsunami, it was interesting to follow some of the debates
as to responses in terms of rebuilding post that event. In many
ways what one saw was rather an adverse model of response; that
is to say, a lot of poor communities did not have rights to the
land from which their shelters and housing had been swept away.
The situation post-tsunami was a more inequitable pattern of access
to land and shelter than had existed before. On the environmental
front, I am aware that there was some talk about trying to get
rehabilitation of mangrove populations and things like that as
a way to provide a better buffer, but clearly it makes a great
amount of sense to see how one can use these reconstruction efforts
to build a better, more sustainable and equitable pathway.
Q269 Chairman: We have received a
paper from Lisa Schipper and Mark Pelling on disaster risk, climate
change and international development[7].
They comment: "Poverty Reduction and Strategy Papers provide
a vehicle for integrating risk reduction into poverty alleviation
programmes, but so far emphasis has been on early warning and
relief and not on prevention." They go on to say: "A
notable exception is Vietnam's PRSP which combines education,
planning and risk-reduction policy." Can you comment on that?
Do you know anything about the Vietnamese programme?
Dr Huq: It is true that by and
large the criticism of the PRS process in many countries is that
it has not made that linkage with environmental issues and particularly
the long-term implications of climate change. Vietnam is a good
example of where they have tried to do that. In a sense, countries
like Vietnam and perhaps China, where central planning has been
a very long tradition, are able to take a longer-term view than
other countries which have very short-term perspectives, particularly
when there is a crisis. It is just crisis management and it is
very difficult to start thinking about the long-term implications
of the investments that are made at that point. Increasingly,
that is being recognised, even in the US which has experienced
Hurricane Katrina. One sees the debates about whether or not they
should rebuild to the previous standard or a higher one given
that the likelihood of hurricanes of that magnitude occurring
in future is now higher. The US Government and the US Corps of
Engineers are debating this point. Crises can often stimulate
an opportunity to debate the issue.
Q270 John Barrett: It is not just
about providing the poor with more solid house structures; it
is perhaps about dealing with poverty, and I am not sure that
that is yet on the agenda.
Dr Huq: Perhaps not.
Dr Toulmin: Vietnam is an interesting
case. I think you will find that what lies behind that much greater
attention to climate change is probably a building up of climate
change capacity within Vietnam which is then able to argue that
case within government. I know there has been a very long-standing
and good relationship between the University of East Anglia, now
the Tyndall Centre, and the Vietnamese climate change science
base. Yesterday we heard colleagues talking about trying to get
the environment into the PRS in Tanzania. That seems to be developing
well, in part because there are well established key figures within
the Tanzanian environmental and agricultural sectors who can lobby
and push. Building that capacity in country is an absolutely key
factor. Donors can do a certain amount, but one needs a set of
people who can argue their corner within their own countries.
Q271 Chairman: Later this year the
Committee is to start an inquiry into water. It raises the issue
that if one is facing projections of reduced rainfall this is
a good moment to invest in better water infrastructure, storage
and capacity. One may extend fertility and reduce the risk of
desertification as part of a development strategy rather than
a disaster reduction strategy?
Dr Toulmin: Absolutely.
Q272 Ann McKechin: I should like
to ask about the UN Convention on Climate Change which called
on countries to pay particular attention to this problem. How
does this involve the development actors? You are probably aware
that recently the World Bank has announced that the element of
sustainability is to be effectively downgraded within that organisation.
Can you comment on the extent to which development actors such
as the World Bank or DFID over the past 10 years have been investing
more in climate change programmes? Have they been changing their
policies to suit the scientific evidence which is now available?
Joan Ruddock has commented on the extent to which developing nations
are being involved in that process.
Dr Huq: My impression of the development
funding agencies is that in the past couple of years they have
started to take it more seriously. Before that the answer would
have been "no". Mr Hilary Benn, the current Secretary
of State, has certainly made a number of speeches which have highlighted
the situation. His predecessor did not; she did not agree that
this was a poverty or development issue, and that was very much
a prevalent mindset in the development community in the past.
I believe that that has changed and it is beginning to be addressed.
What they have been doing has been largely to look at climate
change impacts on investments. The World Bank has now come out
with an investment portfolio—DFID is doing the same thing—which
looks at key countries like Malawi and the extent to which their
own investments might be jeopardised if there are climate change
effects in those countries. That is a good first step, but it
needs to go a lot quicker in terms of raising awareness, building
capacity to deal with this and the acquisition of the relevant
science in terms that can be used locally in country. There is
still a long way to go in that respect. Even large countries like
India, which has quite a lot of scientific capacity and capability
and good people, have not been able to make a lot of progress
in affecting their own national development agenda yet. Although
they are trying that gap remains. In relation to development agencies
mainstreaming it in their own activities, I believe that those
in DFID concerned with the humanitarian sector still do not regard
climate change as an issue. Their mindset is very much an immediate
post-emergency reaction.
Q273 Ann McKechin: Is more emphasis
needed on staff in the field in developing countries to make sure
that they are aware of these considerations?
Dr Huq: Yes. One is talking about
investment in the countries themselves to enhance scientific capacity
and their own civil society's capacity to cope and adapt. A lot
of work is now happening in adaptation to climate change, again
using that knowledge and experience and sharing it across countries
with good examples from one country to another. A lot can be done
there.
Dr Toulmin: One of the things
we do each year under the climate change convention is hold a
day-long session on development and adaptation. Saleemul brings
together a wonderful collection of people from around the world
to talk about their personal experience in a particular place
and what lessons it has so that we begin to share the experiences
of countries that face different circumstances but very similar
risks.
Q274 Richard Burden: Early warning
systems have been shown to be effective in saving lives in a number
of places. An example of that is the incidence of cyclones in
Bangladesh over the years. You referred to some of the work being
done in Vietnam and Tanzania in getting them to think about climate
change issues. What more do you believe can be done specifically
to get developing countries to invest more economic and political
capital in disaster mitigation and preparedness?
Dr Huq: I believe that investment
in disaster preparedness is reinforced by climate change. Almost
invariably, any climate-related disaster, be it flood, drought
or hurricane, will be made worse by climate change. Therefore,
for policymakers in those countries to assume that just because
they have had a one in 20-year flood this year they do not have
to worry for another 19 years is no longer true. In Bangladesh
last year there was a one in 20-year flood, but it was the fourth
one in that 20-year period. Therefore, it has become a one in
five-year event; it is no longer a one in 20-year hydrological
event. It covered about half the country. What disaster preparedness
can do when it is done well will not reduce damage to zero but
it will be reduced by significant orders of magnitude. Bangladesh
is a very good example. We had floods last year which covered
almost half the country. About 30 million people had to be evacuated,
but the number of deaths was very small, perhaps 100 or 200. Most
of them died by snake bites, not drowning. There was a good deal
of early warning, evacuation and preparedness, with people helping
each other, not just depending on external assistance. It did
a lot of damage to crops and infrastructure; there was a good
deal of economic damage, but the loss of life that might otherwise
have occurred from an event like that in the past did not happen.
Preparedness can be very effective.
Dr Toulmin: Last week we had a
useful interchange with Nick Stern about his review. He said that
he had had discussions with the chairman of the African Union,
Alpha Konare, who said, "My presidents have no sense of urgency
or inkling of the importance of this particular issue. Please
will you come after the climate change meeting and talk to some
of them?" It is that sort of thing at that level, and a whole
number of others, that would really help to alert people to the
fact that this is happening and is inevitable. There needs to
be some clever thinking and learning of lessons between countries
as to useful ways to take forward preparedness for what inevitably
will be a more difficult weather pattern particularly in the poorer
parts of the world. Instead of seeing this as some kind of act
of God, which events like the tsunami can reasonably be inferred
to be, we have to see the impacts of increasing climate change-related
events as acts of man. They are the consequence of the process
of global warming that we in the rich world have helped to establish.
I believe that there is a consequent moral responsibility upon
us to think more carefully about how to help communities and countries
cope with those changes, as well as the moral responsibility significantly
to reduce carbon emissions. To think about both adaptation and
mitigation is a key factor and we need to see much more rapid
progress.
Chairman: Joan Ruddock and I were at
the same meeting at the weekend. We heard some opinions, one of
which was that, following Hurricane Katrina, 13% of Americans
thought that it was caused by spiritual factors. The gods were
angry. If that is true in America it is probably less true everywhere
else! It brings to mind the practicalities. You referred to Bangladesh.
Ordinary people can help themselves if they have information.
I thank you both very much for coming today and sharing your thoughts
with us. It has been helpful.
6 Least Developed Countries. Back
7
"Disaster risk, climate change and international development:
scope for, and challenges to, integration", Lisa Schipper
and Mark Pelling 30(1) pp 19-38, Disasters, Blackwell. Back
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