VOICE Out Loud newsletter: DRR and climate change adaptation

From the devastation caused by violent cyclones to displacement as a drought survival mechanism, climate change together with vulnerability severely impacts on people’s survival. Humanitarian actors are the first responders to the growing needs created by natural disasters. These new challenges might bring about a need to change the way they work, engaging more in prevention to mitigate the need for response. From different angles, DRR and CCA both aim at reducing people’s vulnerability to hazards. However, there remains a linkage and coordination gap between the two approaches, including at the European Union level. Humanitarian experience, lessons learnt and best practices in DRR offer a professional perspective on how to bridge that gap. One thing is clear: the people at risk of hazards need to be at the heart of policy and programming decision making processes. We therefore complete our NGO overview of DRR and CCA issues by a unique perspective on DRR at community level in the South by the Global Network of Civil Society Organisations for Disaster Risk Reduction.

Read more on Reliefweb.

IRIN: IPCC and meteorologists to help with humanitarian climate change DRR

Last week, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) announced it would start working on a "how to" manual (expected in 2011) for policy-makers and disaster officials on managing the risks of extreme weather events and bolstering resilience, to promote adaptation to global warming, IRIN reported.

The IPCC's special report would help agencies like IFRC, which are trying to draw up plans to help communities prepare for extreme weather events, especially in areas where climate change forecasts are uncertain.

At last disaster risk reduction and climate change adaption are being studied together (see in this regard a report by Mitchell and van Aalst), and it is being acknowledged that DRR plays an important role as a 'first line of defence', a first step towards longer-term adaption.

IRIN also reported on the successful co-operation between the IFRC and meteorological services in predicting natural disasters occurring. This allows specialised teams to get in place before the disaster happens, gaining valuable time in making disaster responses more effective.

HPN: People-centred disaster risk assessment in Ethiopia

Network Paper 66, Solving the risk equation: People-centred disaster risk assessment in Ethiopia, explains why the information and analysis system recently established within the Ethiopian Ministry of Agriculture represents a substantial new opportunity for people-centred disaster risk assessment. The vulnerability component of the analytical process was previously missing or patchy at best; with the establishment of the national livelihoods information system, this gap has been largely filled.

HPN: The Role of the Affected State in humanitarian action

Humanitarian Exchange Magazine 43 features articles on the role of the affected state in humanitarian action. Case studies explore the extent to which economic growth, political stability and experience impact on the willingness and capacity of states to manage disaster response. The surprisingly positive role the military has played in supporting effective state-led disaster response is also highlighted and perceptions – often promoted by the media – that only international relief agencies can save lives and alleviate suffering are challenged. The role of the state in humanitarian action is, however, not always positive, as illustrated in articles focused on Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe.

Feature stories:
Aid and access in Sri Lanka
The silver lining of the tsunami?: disaster management in Indonesia
When the affected state causes the crisis: the case of Zimbabwe
Humanitarian governance in Ethiopia
Land and displacement in Timor-Leste
Lessons from the Sichuan earthquake

Practice and policy notes
Britain and Afghanistan: policy and expectations
Are humanitarians fuelling conflicts? Evidence from eastern Chad and Darfur
Lessons from campaigning on Darfur
Supporting the capacity of beneficiaries, local staff and partners to face violence alone
Stuck in the ‘recovery gap’: the role of humanitarian aid in the Central African Republic
Out of site, out of mind? Reflections on responding to displacement in DRC
Making cash work: a case study from Kenya

Reuters: El Nino seems all but certain

An El Nino weather pattern this year appears almost certain, Australia's Bureau of Meteorology said on Wednesday in a revised forecast, raising the prospect of drought in Australia and a even weaker monsoon in India.

The odds for El Nino, an abnormal warming of the eastern Pacific Ocean that creates havoc in weather patterns across the Asia-Pacific region, had risen significantly since two weeks ago, when the bureau said there was a more than 50 percent chance.

That's probably bad news for farmers in Australia who have sown near record acreage, and in India, which is already bracing for below-average monsoon rains, the lifeblood of the country's agriculture.

It would also have implications for commodity markets, potentially lifting wheat prices that have slumped over the past month on expectations of a bumper global harvest, and adding further fuel to soaring sugar prices that are already bracing for a second disappointing crop year from top consumer India.

Read more on the Reuters website.

Plan and WVI: Children have a vital role in DRR

The experience of NGOs, including Plan International and World Vision International, confirms that children, who represent 50% of the world’s population, can and do play invaluable roles in planning and implementing disaster risk reduction (DRR) and climate change adaptation activities. In spite of this evidence, children are, by and large, excluded from the activities that contribute to building the resilience of their local communities. Children must be engaged as a vital part of the civil society mechanism that monitors HFA progress, which the Views from the Frontline survey has sought to establish.

Read more on Reliefweb.

ODI's six messages on climate change

At the beginning of June ODI hosted the last in its series of Climate Change and Development meetings. Since January, 11 meetings have featured top scientists and thinkers, government ministers, international diplomats, NGO leaders, and policy shapers. They have discussed a wide range of topics: from the science of climate change, through sectoral issues, to policy frameworks and both radical and routine techniques for mitigation to prevent climate change, and adaptation to its realities.

Six key messages have emerged from the series:

1. Climate change is big, urgent and happening right now.
2. Uncertainty about future carbon emissions and their impact makes it vital to focus on specific contexts
3. Middle income countries must play their part in mitigation
4. Climate change is going to cost a lot, and innovative finance is crucial
5. We need to be clear about our expectations for Copenhagen
6. Lessons about politics and policy-making on climate change are critical

Read more on the ODI blog.

Care, UN and Columbia University: Climate change forces new migration response

Climate change will force millions of people to leave their homes to flee rising seas and drought over the coming decades, requiring a new plan for mass migration, said a report published on Wednesday. Funds were needed to help migrants escape natural disasters which will worsen, threatening political stability, said the report published by the U.N. University, CARE International and Columbia University.

"Environmentally induced migration and displacement has the potential to become an unprecedented phenomenon -- both in terms of scale and scope," the study said. "In coming decades, climate change will motivate or force millions of people to leave their homes in search of viable livelihoods and safety."

The report said that the science of climate change was too new to forecast exact projected numbers of migrants, but it cited an International Organisation for Migration estimate of 200 million environmentally induced migrants by 2050.

Wednesday's study highlighted especially vulnerable regions of the world including: island states such as Tuvalu and the Maldives, dry areas such as Africa's Sahel and in Mexico, and delta regions in Bangladesh, Vietnam, and Egypt. "In the densely populated Ganges, Mekong, and Nile River deltas, a sea level rise of 1 metre could affect 23.5 million people and reduce the land currently under intensive agriculture by at least 1.5 million hectares," it said.

Read more on more on the Reuters website

Reuters: Disaster-prone Bangladesh trials cell phone alerts

Tens of thousands of mobile users in Bangladesh's flood and cyclone-prone areas will now receive advance warning of an impending natural disaster through an alert on their cell phones, a government official says.

Bangladesh -- one of the world's most densely populated countries -- is highly vulnerable to natural disasters, including cyclones, storm surges, droughts, floods and earthquakes, which often affect millions of people.

In a bid to minimize loss of life and damage to property, Bangladeshi authorities have signed an agreement with two mobile operators in the country to provide disaster early warning alerts to subscribers.

Grameenphone and state-owned Teletalk will send instant messages to their subscribers in two of the most vulnerable areas -- flood-prone north-central Shirajganj district and cyclone-prone Cox's Bazar district on the coast.

Read more on Reuters.

UN-ISDR: 2009 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction: Risk and Poverty in a Changing Climate

The Report is the first biennial global assessment of disaster risk
reduction prepared in the context of the International Strategy for
Disaster Reduction (ISDR). The ISDR, launched in 2000, provides a
framework to coordinate actions to address disaster risks at the local,
national, regional and international levels. The Hyogo Framework for
Action for Action 2005-2015 (HFA), endorsed by 168 UN member states at
the World Conference on Disaster Reduction in Kobe, Japan in 2005,
urges all countries to make major efforts to reduce their disaster risk
by 2015.  

Download the report from Reliefweb.

Global Humanitarian Forum report: Human Impact of Climate Change

First ever report exclusively focused on the global human impact of climate change calculates more than 300 million people are seriously affected by climate change at a total economic cost of $125 billion per year

• Report projects that by 2030, worldwide deaths will reach almost 500,000 per year; people affected by climate change annually expected to rise to over 600 million and the total annual economic cost increase to around $300 billion
  
• To avert worst possible outcomes, climate change adaptation efforts need to be scaled up by a factor of 100 in developing countries, which account for 99% of casualties due to climate change

Read more on the GHF website. Download the report here.

HPG: Getting it right: Understanding livelihoods to reduce the vulnerability of pastoral communities

A new synthesis paper 'argues that the increasing vulnerability to food insecurity that pastoralists face stems from the failure to put the protection of pastoral livelihoods at the centre of emergency preparedness, planning and response mechanisms':

Emergency responses are failing on three counts. They fail to prevent the recurrence of crisis. They fail to support the capacity of the pastoral community to withstand the effects of shocks. And they fail to adapt to the changing nature of shocks. There is an urgent need to develop responses that address the underlying causes of the increasing vulnerability facing agro-based livelihoods (livestock and farming). Equally important are developmental responses to enable poor households to pursue productive economic alternatives.

Download the paper from the HPN website.

IRIN: Mozambique: climate change adaptation can't wait

A detailed study of the effects of climate change on Mozambique has confirmed what many experts feared: unless immediate action is taken, the country will be overwhelmed by the impacts of cyclones, floods, droughts and disease outbreaks.

"I am alarmed by many of the findings presented in this study," said Ndolam Ngokwe, the UN resident coordinator in Mozambique, at the launch of the INGC Climate Change Report by Mozambique's National Disaster Management Institute (INGC) in the capital, Maputo, on 25 June. ...

Mozambique, already more frequently and severely affected by natural disasters than virtually any other country in Africa, would have to adapt to a changing reality, Ngokwe warned.

The study combined historical climate data from various Mozambican weather stations with global climate projections, and together with anticipated socio-economic developments, developed scenarios and identified adaptation measures for reducing vulnerability.

..."The exposure to natural disaster risk in Mozambique will increase significantly over the coming 20 years and beyond," the report noted. In the event of poor global mitigation results - the "too little, too late" scenario - temperatures in Mozambique could rise by as much as two degrees Celsius to 2.5 degrees Celsius by 2050, and by 5 degrees Celsius to 6 degrees Celsius by 2090.

Rainfall variability would increase, the start of the rainy season would likely shift, flood risk would be higher, and the centre of the country would suffer more intense cyclones and droughts.

Read more on IRIN.

IRIN: Bangladesh: Effective cyclone evacuation measures save countless lives

IRIN reports that 'some 600,000 people were evacuated to cyclone shelters prior to the cyclone - a significant factor in minimising the loss of life.'

Read more on IRIN.

HPG: Changing drylands: approaches to preventing disaster among pastoralists in the Horn and East Africa

People in the Arid and Semi Arid Lands of the Horn and East Africa have adapted over the ages to hot and dry conditions. Living as pastoralists, they keep livestock in ways that take advantage of production and follow a natural cycle of rangeland and water use. Today pastoralism makes a significant contribution to the income of many Horn and East African countries and contributes to the livelihoods of many millions of people. However, recurrent droughts, limited access to land and restrictive policies are stretching pastoralists' ability to cope. Many of the less fortunate have fallen into destitution and poverty.

Governments and international agencies have yet to find effective solutions to the natural and political vulnerabilities of these communities in ways that respect the complexity of pastoral livelihoods. What is more, the short-term focus of their responses has failed to address the underlying causes of problems – in some cases, compounding them.

This set of Synthesis Papers presents analysis and recommendations on a range of issues affecting pastoralists in the Horn and East Africa. They will be launched at a major regional symposium in Nairobi, Kenya today (May 15th) with follow up events and seminars in Uganda, Ethiopia and Somalia in the coming months.

Use the links below to access the individual papers:

Getting it right: Understanding livelihoods to reduce the vulnerability of pastoral communities

Social protection in pastoral areas

Demographic trends, settlement patterns and service provision in pastoralism

Mobile pastoral systems and international zoosanitary standards

Pastoralism, policies and practice in the Horn and East Africa: A review of current trends

Pastoralism and climate change: Enabling adaptive capacity

Ask UN's Chief of International Strategy for Disaster Reduction

Via Zehra:

YOUR TURN TO ASK: Reducing risk in a world of disasters
11 May 2009 15:36:00 GMT
Written by: AlertNet

This Sunday, the United Nations will be launching an important new report looking at how, where and why disaster risk is increasing globally.
Drawing on more than 30 years of data, the study will analyse how climate change and other factors are changing the map of vulnerability. It will also come up with key recommendations for making the planet safer.
The contents of the report are under lock and key until the May 17 launch in Bahrain. But AlertNet has asked the United Nations' top official on disaster risk reduction to field questions from readers ahead of the event.
Margareta Wahlstrom, chief of the U.N.'s International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, will answer your burning questions about climate change, vulnerability and the risks faced by developing countries. You can participate by using the comments section below or by using the #askmw tag on Twitter.

We'll get as many of your questions to Wahlstrom as possible, and we'll be publishing her replies on AlertNet on Friday, so keep checking back!

New to Twitter? If you aren't using Twitter already but want to post a question or see what other people are asking Wahlstrom through Twitter, just get yourself a Twitter account, search for the #askmw tag and view all questions. You can post a 140-character question yourself, making sure to use the #askmw tag somewhere in your post so it sits with all the other posts from people across the Twittersphere.

Federation: Resilience Framework for Community Safety and Resilience in the face of disaster risk

This new framework, drawn up following consultation, intends:

to establish a foundation on which all Red Cross Red Crescent programmes, projects and interventions in DRR and all actions which contribute to the building of safe and resilient communities can be created, developed and sustained.

Download the Framework from the Federation website.

John Holmes: New “business model” for humanitarian aid

IRIN: You are on the WEF Council on Humanitarian Assistance. What specific ideas have you brought to the council in terms of climate change and food insecurity?

JH: What we were discussing was the need to do two things which aren’t exactly new ideas but we were trying to formulate them in a reasonably coherent way. One is to spend a lot more time and effort on what you might call the upstream side - the prevention, the disaster risk reduction, the preparedness side so that there is more effort and more resources and more thought going into that, rather than concentrating too much on the response side after the event - which is necessary because you need to help people when they’re in their moment of need but it is not a very good investment because you can’t solve any problems that way. And the second related thought is to try to empower national governments, local communities, maybe regional organisations - to make them have more capacity, be more empowered, so that the international community doesn’t need to intervene so much and can reserve itself for cases of really major need. So those two things go together if we can get that combination right. It is what we try to describe as a new business model for humanitarian assistance. These thoughts have been had before but we are trying to encapsulate them in a new way.

IRIN: But what has hindered this development? Kofi Annan when he was UN secretary-general talked about the need for humanitarians to move from a culture of response to a culture of prevention. This has not happened yet.

JH: I think it is something to do with human nature. In our personal lives we know that prevention is better than cure, prevention health is better than response afterwards, but we don’t actually behave in ways which correspond to that. I think similarly governments and international institutions know in theory that it’s much better to invest more and do more on the prevention side but they don’t actually do it. You have to convince finance ministers, you have to convince presidents and prime ministers that they need to invest in something the results of which will only be seen in 10 or 15 years when they may no longer be in power. That is quite a tricky thing to do. So you’ve got to have your arguments marshalled. You have got to be able to prove to them - as we hope to be able to do in the new study which is under way - that this is actually a really good investment because there are going to be more and more disasters from climate change and hence the importance of the disaster risk reduction agenda because of the link to climate change.

Read more on the IRIN website.

RC/RC Climate Change Centre Newsletter

Issue 12, November 2008

1. IFRC Secretary General Bekele Geleta will join the RC delegation at the UNFCCC Climate Conference COP 14 in Poznan, Poland 1-15 December 2008
The Red Cross/ Red Crescent Climate Centre and the IFRC are currently preparing for the COP 14. This year we are very pleased with a substantive cooperation amongst a large number of other humanitarian organizations in this preparatory process. Within the Inter Agency Standing Commission (IASC), that established an informal climate change taskforce, we are investing in a coordinated approach with the main humanitarian actors in the field to bring one joint message at the COP.
This has led to the production of a joint paper by ISDR and IASC in disaster risk reduction and risk management. Furthermore the Red Cross Red Crescent will organize a side event on Early warning Early Action (see news item number 4.) during the first week of the conference. At this side event, which the IFRC will host and organize together with OCHA and the Institute for Climate and Society (IRI), we shall demonstrate the first IFRC experiences of using seasonal forecasts for disaster risk management. Read more about Red Cross/ Red Crescent advocacy at the UNFCCC Climate Conference. All National RC Societies interested to be engaged in the preparatory work for the Climate Change Conference in Poznan (and in Copenhagen next year) are invited to contact the Red Cross/ Red Crescent Climate Centre. We call upon National Societies to join the IFRC delegation in Poznan, but can't provide financial support.

2. Progress of the Preparedness for Climate Change programme
The Preparedness for Climate Change Program, in which 37 National Red Cross Red Crescent Societies participate, will soon end. Many National Societies will be able to finalize the last phase of the programme successfully and we are happy to see the results. In brief, this programme consists of four consecutive steps, in which the National Societies are supported to assess the climate risks within their countries, align with all possible partners in their country, explore which climate risks are effecting the existing programmes and in the last phase: come up with a concrete action plan to integrate addressing climate risks in the operations of the National Society. In addition to that, most National Societies were able to share their experiences in a regional workshop and exchange ideas and knowledge with other National Societies. This whole process will lead to concrete ideas on how to reduce vulnerability due to climate change. In September and October four regional meetings were held in Mombasa (East Africa), Jakarta (South East Asia), Dakar (West Africa) and San Salvador (Central America plus Colombia). Read more about the regional climate risk meetings. Please find more information about the programme on our website.

3. Your National Society can now request a Disaster Relief Emergency Fund (DREF) BEFORE a disaster strikes.
If scientific evidence clearly shows a substantial risk of an emerging disaster, which might hit specific regions in your country, a preliminary DREF request can be granted by the IFRC so that your operations and contingency can lift off ahead of time. This early warning can improve disaster preparedness and response and hence safe lives. The supporting evidence needed for a preliminary DREF request can be based on short-term predictions, as well as seasonal precipitation forecasts (from sources like your country's meteorological service, the IRI-IFRC map room, or regional centres with climate expertise, like CATHA/SERVIR, CILSS or ACMAD, and it can be obtained with assistance from the IFRC. Until very recently it was common to only provide evidence during and after the disaster. We believe this to be revolutionary within the Red Cross Red Crescent and it can further stimulate National Society to focus also on early warnings and the climate risk management discourse. Please visit DMIS (internal IFRC information site) for more information. The RC/RC Climate Centre has recently facilitated workshop on new tools for climate risk management in two zones (Americas and West & Central Africa), and if there is interested this kind of initiative could be scaled up.

4. Early Warning Early Action
With the IFRC-secretariat in Geneva, the RC/RC Climate centre is working on a paper explaining and promoting 'Early Warning Early Action' -- routinely taking humanitarian action based on scientific information on all timescales. This concept bridges disaster risk reduction, preparedness and response, and integrates information about long-term trends in risk, seasonal forecasts and immediate early warnings for disasters, which should lead to action at international, regional, national and local levels. It is one of the most promising ways to better deal with rising risks in all aspects of our work. Shortly the Climate Centre will launch a special case study on 'early warning early action' which shall explain the concept and the Red Cross/ Red Crescent approach to the subject. This case study will be published on the Climate Centre website at the end of November. Early Warning Early Action will also be the main theme in the production of the World Disaster Report (WDR) 2009.

5. The continuation of fruitful partnerships on climate risk reduction
The IFRC and the Climate Centre cooperate closely with the:
- International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI)
- African Centre of Meteorological Application for Development (ACMAD)
- Centre Regional de Formation et d'Application en Agrométéorologie et Hydrologie Opérationnelle (AGRHYMET)
- Centro del Agua del Trópico Humedo para America Latina y el Caribe (Water Center for the Humid Tropics of Latin America and the Caribbean) (CATHALAC)

Cooperation with these specialized scientific agencies help the Red Cross/ Red Crescent to 'translate' important weather forecast for operational use. The RC/RC Climate Centre and the IFRC have been embarking on a number of initiatives, especially with the IRI and Cathalac. A number of interns located in Central America and West Africa have occupied themselves to bridge between the available science and the operational disaster management of the IFRC and National Societies. Specific attention was given to the development of climate forecasting tools aimed at strengthening early warning for the Movement, like the development of a flood forecasting tool in conjunction with CATHALAC. The IRI also positioned an intern at the IFRC office in Dakar, Senegal to help shape the collaboration with the IFRC, AGRHYMET and ACMAD to improve the capacity to comprehend the weather forecasts and to make the right interpretations based on the predictions.

Please find below two important achievements:

• The IFRC and the IRI set up a specific 'help desk' for National Societies that want to understand the more technical information about forecasts in their region. Every RC-related question on observed and projected conditions are given in the most timely and reliable way possible. This partnership proves to be a solid longer lasting collaboration and we can identify the fruits of this partnership in West Africa, where a seasonal forecast indicated an enhanced chance of above average rainfall. This was communicated as a warning from the IRI to the IFRC and an early action could start in the region and a preliminary appeal based on a seasonal forecast was launched by the IFRC: Read more. Early action can lead to improved response capacity, hence to saving lives.
• CATHALAC and the IRI organized a specific workshop on new tools for disaster management, specifically aimed at improving tools for Red Cross staff. Discussions during this workshop dealt with the use of satellite data for disaster damage assessment, prediction of hydro-meteorological events and information in real time to monitor phenomena like storms of short duration, as well as climatological information of the seasonal trends of climate long period available for the region to aid in the monitoring of extreme weather events.

6. The PAN AFRICAN Conference
At 19 October 2008 the 7th Pan African Conference took place in Johannesburg, South Africa. 53 African National Red Cross/ Red Crescent Societies reflected on today's humanitarian priorities in Africa and aimed to set the agenda of the four years to come. The Climate Centre was present at the Pan African Conference and gave a general presentation on climate change and climate risk management within the Red Cross/ Red Crescent. In preparation to this Conference the Climate Centre Journalist, Alex Wynter prepared a very interesting case study about climate risks in Africa.

7. The Pacific Round Table, Samoa October 2008
Held amongst the backdrop of coconut palms and frangipani was the 2008 Pacific Climate Change Roundtable in Apia, Samoa 14-17 October. Governments and civil society met to map out organisations working on climate change in the region, achievements to date, share information and approaches as well as look to the future. 2009 will be the Pacific 'Year of Climate Change' which will call for involvement at all levels to bring messages home not just about the causes of climate change but also practical measures that can be taken to adapt to it. There will be many opportunities for Pacific National Societies to get involved in national efforts. Further collaborations with meteorological agencies and climate science providers in the region are also being fostered as a result of the meeting. During one of the lunch breaks at the meeting the Samoa Red Cross youth volunteers conducted a funny drama routine on climate change to bring the message home that creativity and youth can bring a new vibrancy to talking climate.

8. Guatemala: growing awareness for climate change (an article by Marie Louise Belanger, Regional Communications Officer IFRC)
Protecting the livelihoods of vulnerable communities against the future effects of climate change can take many different forms. The Guatemalan Red Cross, with support from the Netherland Red Cross (funded through the HERE Campaign in the Netherlands), is working towards this goal by strengthening local capacities to respond to disasters and raising awareness about the effects of climate change. One of the activities involves the planting of saplings near the community school of Sabana Grande in the Chiquimula-region in the southeast of the country. This is done together with teachers, students and parents. Once the trees have grown, they will help keep the local stream in place, a vital water source for the whole community. Read more.

A similar project has kicked ofF in India and an article on the IFRC website, written by Amit Kumar explains very well how changes in India's annual monsoon cycle are expected to result in a combination of severe droughts and intense flooding in some parts of India. Such extremes in the availability of water resources are likely to have a serious affect on human health, agriculture, forests and wildlife. On World Red Cross Red Crescent Day, the Indian Red Cross Society launched a nationwide tree-planting initiative through its network of 700 branches. Leading the campaign is Professor S.P. Agarwal, Secretary General of the Indian Red Cross Society. He highlighted the need to work together to combat climate change. "There are no easy solutions to global warming and tree planting drives in a growing country like India have the potential to be beneficial to poor and vulnerable populations." Read more.

9. Engaging young people in the Solomon Islands for Red Cross Action on Climate Change
Julie Webb recently wrote a case study capturing the hard work of the Solomon Islands Red Cross on engaging youth on the issue of climate change. Poster competitions, school visits, village assessments, radio programmes and World Environment Day activities have all involved young volunteers. A National Youth Forum on Climate Change will be held in the first week of November and will heavily involve Solomon Islands Red Cross staff and volunteers in creating action plans for risk reduction with the young participants. Read more.

10. Climate Centre films
The Climate Centre is currently working with a number of filmmakers to explore on future possibilities of the production of videos in the coming months. A project to promote climate adaptation in Malawi has been in the works since 2007, and several short films were recently released. Here, villagers in Mphunga village produced a participatory video to share, through video screenings workshops, community-based adaptation practices with four other neighboring communities that face similar problems.
- Film nr. One: 'Adaptation to climate Change by Mphunga Villagers' was 100% made by the villagers on a participatory video approach. It consists of the villagers' perspectives on climate change and how they are adapting by capturing and sharing six of these community-based practices.
- Film number two is called: 'Farmers become Filmakers' and it includes, interviews with the neighboring villagers and viewers about what they have learned on climate risks and final interviews with the filmmakers about their impressions of making such a film. This film has been selected for the shortlist of the 'Social Dimensions of Climate Change award' and is now proceeding to an independent judges panel. . We also enrolled part of this footage at the video festival at development and climate days during UNFCCC COP 14 in Poland.
- The video 'More than Survival' was made in Tabasco, Mexico. It gives a very good overview on the harsh impacts of climate change on the living conditions. It is a spanish film with English subtitles.
To see more films on climate change and the Red Cross, please visit the Climate Centre film's section at htpp://www.climatecentre.org.

11. Publications by the Climate Centre Staff
- An interview with Madeleen Helmer: Not just a band-aid in 'Onearth', Published by the natural resources defense council, fall 2008.
- Communicating Climate Risks, by Maarten van Aalst. Published in the Forced Migration Review on climate change and displacement, October 2008
- Video-Mediated Approaches for Community-Level Climate Adaptation, by Suarez, P., Ching, F., Ziervogel, G., Lemaire, I., Turnquest, D., Mendler de Suarez, J. and Wisner, B.. IDS Bulletin 39 (4) 96-104, September 2008.
- International Youth Day: mobilizing Red Cross and Red Crescent volunteers on the impact of climate change, article produced in conjunction with the IFRC Youth Department in Geneva, August 2008.
- Climate-Related Disasters: Humanitarian Challenges and Reconstruction Opportunities, by Pablo Suarez, Graham Saunders, Sandra Mendler, Isabelle Lemaire, Jorge Karol, and Laura Curtis in the Journal called: "Places: a Forum of Environmental Design", October 2008
Please contact the Climate Centre if you would like to obtain any of the articles.


For more information and the Red Cross/ Red Crescent Climate Centre Climate Guide (5MB) or the Climate Centre's Annual report 2007 please visit the website at www.climatecentre.org.

UNISDR: Climate Change and Disaster Risk Reduction: Weather, Climate and Climate Change

Climate change and disaster risk reduction are closely linked. More extreme weather events in future are likely to increase the number and scale of disasters, while at the same time, the existing methods and tools of disaster risk reduction provide powerful capacities for adaptation to climate change.

This Briefing Note, prepared by the secretariat of the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction Secretariat (UNISDR), outlines the nature and significance of climate change for disaster risk, as well as the main perspectives and approaches of disaster risk reduction and how they can support adaptation strategies.

Download from Reliefweb.