FAQ

1. Why is climate change a Red Cross and Red Crescent matter?

Leading scientists indicate that the global climate is changing. As a result extreme weather is increasing, average temperature is rising, patterns of dry and wet periods are shifting, and sea levels are rising. These effects impact on the vulnerability of people.

Extreme weather

Climate change is accompanied by an increase in extreme weather events. The trend can already be witnessed: frequency, intensity and unpredictability of extreme weather is increasing.

• Increasing floods as a result of heavy rainfall, leading to also to landslides and contamination of water supplies;
• More intense tropical storms, with higher wind speed and more rainfall;
• Heat waves multiply, endangering especially the elderly and disabled.

Temperatures and weather patterns

Climate change is causing  higher average temperatures in most places, and affects common patterns of dry and wet periods:

• Prolonged droughts threaten food security and water availability;
• Spread of diseases: disease-carrying mosquitoes and tics move to new areas, areas affected by malaria and dengue are shifting.

Sea level rise

The temperature rise causes sea levels to rise as glaciers melt and warmer sea water takes up more volume.

• Coastal flooding becomes more frequent and salt water intrusion threatens water supply and food production.

These increases in vulnerability of people, particularly those on poor countries, makes climate change a matter for the Red Cross.

2. How does climate change affect the Red Cross Red Crescent work?

Addressing the increased vulnerability of people will mean that Red Cross and Red Crescent relief capacity has to be increased, but also that more should be done to prepare for disasters and reduce their risk.

Disaster relief

The increase in weather related disasters, food shortages, vector borne diseases and flash floods will necessitate more Red Cross and Red Crescent assistance to affected people. This necessitates the strengthening of Red Cross and Red Crescent capacity in relief.

Post-disaster assistance is often costly. Moreover as the number of disasters increases, development efforts are seriously threatened. Therefore, apart from strengthening the capacity for post-disaster relief, the Red Cross and Red Crescent should also put more emphasis on pre-disaster disaster preparedness and risk reduction.

Disaster preparedness

Increased numbers of disasters, often very local, necessitate the preparedness of communities to adequately respond to these: first aid, early warning, search and rescue, relief stocks, etc.

Disaster risk reduction

By reducing vulnerability of people and strengthening livelihoods, people become more resilient to disasters. Efforts should be aimed at food security, drinking water supplies, primary health care, and small infrastructural works, so that floods, storms, heat waves, droughts and diseases will have less effect.

3. What is the Red Cross and Red Crescent doing so far?

The Red Cross and Red Crescent are confronted with the effects of climate change because the vulnerability of people increases. For its assistance the Red Cross and Red Crescent will need more capacity, but it also needs to work with communities to increase their ability to address their own vulnerability. Moreover the Red Cross and Red Crescent will work to raise awareness within the Movement and with policy makers and the general public. Where possible it will highlight the negative impact of climate change on the vulnerability of people. Finally, as the science on climate change is becoming more detailed, and the Red Cross itself is gaining experience, knowledge will be analyzed, shared and applied where possible.

Awareness

Raising awareness of the impact of climate change on the vulnerability of people and of options to decrease these impacts is of prime importance. It is vital that both the general public, policy makers, civil society organisations and the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement itself become more aware of these new risks.

Action

Awareness needs to be put into practise in concrete programmes to decrease the risks of climate change for vulnerable people.  Within the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement these programmes build upon the existing practises of disaster preparedness, disaster risk reduction and health.

Advocacy

It is important to communicate the Red Cross and Red Crescent approach to climate risk reduction to policymakers, other international civil society organisations and scientists. Moreover the Red Cross and Red Crescent has a responsibility to highlight the impact of climate change on vulnerable people and to advocate for policies and measures, and funds  that will reduce these impacts.

Analysis

Addressing the humanitarian consequences of climate change is a rather new area of work and the urgency to learn and scale up in a short time frame is considerable. Analyzing the successes and failures of the Red Cross and Red Crescent approach to climate change risks and the programmes that are implemented will be a key component of the Red Cross/Red Crescent Climate Centre's activities.

At national level, the National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies are the key players. At international level, the Federation's Zone offices and Secretariat, supported by the Red Cross/Red Crescent Climate Centre, play an important role. Moreover the Climate Centre supports National Societies in increasing their understanding of the implications of climate change for their work, and in addressing the impacts of climate change in Red Cross and Red Crescent programmes.

4. Adaptation vs. mitigation

The discussion on how to address climate change takes place along two lines: greenhouse gas mitigation focuses on tackling the causes of climate change, adaptation on dealing with the consequences.

Greenhouse gas mitigation

The main cause of climate change are human induced greenhouse gasses, particularly carbon dioxide (CO2). The focus of much of the climate change debate is on how these emissions can be reduced. This is a global debate where governments are the key players. The Kyoto protocol is the best known agreement in this field.

Adaptation

Even if greenhouse gas emissions were to stop today the global climate would still continue to change, given that the greenhouse gases that have already been emitted stay in the atmosphere for many decades. The consequences of climate change will therefore also continue to affect vulnerable people. These effects will manifest themselves at local level, and it is here that organizations like the Red Cross and Red Crescent play a key role.

As a humanitarian organization the Red Cross and Red Crescent does not have expertise on how to achieve reductions of greenhouse gas emissions. It will therefore not play a role in the political debate on policies and measures that aim at greenhouse gas mitigation. (However, the Red Cross and Red Crescent agrees that emission reduction is important). Instead, the key focus of the Red Cross and Red Crescent in its awareness, action, advocacy and analysis efforts, is on adaptation.

It should be noted that policy makers, civil society organizations and scientists dealing with climate change often use different language than the Red Cross and Red Crescent. As interaction with the climate change community increases the Red Cross and Red Crescent will inevitably be confronted with a vocabulary where particularly adaptation and mitigation have a different meaning.

5. What is and what is not Climate Change?

Climate change becomes such a hot topic that many people tend to relate all disasters to climate change. Especially the Red Cross and Red Crescent, whose credibility and expertise is based on understanding and dealing with disasters, it is important to clearly distinct climate change related disasters from other natural disasters.

Disasters caused or aggravated by climate change

Climate change will have an effect on weather-related disasters. This implies more extreme weather with heavy rainfall, floods, storms, heat waves. It also implies higher average temperatures and prolonged dry or wet periods with extreme hot and cold days and with a spread of vector borne diseases. And it implies sea level rise with coastal erosion and flooding on coastal areas. But keep in mind that no single disaster is ever `caused´ solely by climate change. All climate change does is to increase the risks.

Disasters not caused or aggravated by climate change

Climate change does not lead to so called geo-physical disasters like earthquakes, volcanic eruption and tsunamis.

6. I work with the Red Cross and Red Crescent / I am a Red Cross and Red Crescent volunteer: what's your advice to me?