Climate change is the defining development issue of human society today, undermining the international efforts to reduce poverty. It threatens to erode human freedoms and limits choices – the key criteria for all development. This is the message of the UNDP Human Development Report 2007/2008 entitled "Fighting Climate Change: Human Solidarity in a Divided World". The report highlights that the fight against poverty and the fight against the effects of climate change must be addressed with interrelated efforts. Both adaptation and mitigation should be seen as human security imperatives in a broader sense.



HDR warns that climate-induced conflict and violence may rise dramatically. Ecological damage resulting from climate change threatens to cause massive human displacement and the collapse of livelihoods on a vast scale. Because the poor are most vulnerable to these impacts, climate change will worsen gross economic inequality both within and between nations, which in return create wider insecurities. Outcomes will extend from cross-border movement of displaced people to the potential collapse of fragile states. In an interdependent world, no country would be immune to the consequences.



To avoid such harmful consequences the HDR suggests a number of mitigation and adaptation strategies. Whereas a Climate Change Mitigation Facility (CCMF) should trigger the technology transfer and financial resources needed for comprehensive mitigation efforts, it suggests four "i"s to successfully adapt to climate changes: information for effective planning, infrastructure for climate proofing, insurance for social risk management and poverty reduction, and institutions for disaster risk management. The HDR gives a number of encouraging local and regional examples how, for example, drought-relief measures in Malawi, Mali or Kenya already helped in the past to facilitate recovery processes. However, when it comes to the international assistance framework for adaptation, the assessment is unambiguous: "too little, too late, too fragmented." It remains to be seen whether the agreement achieved on the adaptation framework in Bali in December will improve this situation. (Christiane Roettger)



The report is available at http://hdr.undp.org/en/reports/global/hdr2007-2008/

Published in: ECC-Newsletter, February 2008