Future social vulnerabilities of LDCs to climatic events.

The episode from Haiyan highlights the vulnerability of countries that are on the path of development; with 7% GDP growth this year and forecast of 6.1% growth in 2014. As less developed countries become richer and experiences high growth rates, does it mean their level of vulnerability decreases?

Patt el al used the method of linear extrapolation from observed disasters to model the future risk of people being affected and killed by climate events in LDCs. Fig.1A shows countries with HDI of around 0.5 has the highest risk from disaster (in this case the author included flood, drought and storm), whereas B shows HDI of around 0.6. The two graphs suggest that countries with HDI of less than 0.5 will implicitly means as their nation become more developed, they will become vulnerable to extreme events (being drought, flood and storms), assuming there are no targeted intervention. This is a worrying piece of data as many nations are becoming more developed, like the Philippines, and their vulnerability could translated into higher death rates and a lot more people could be affected. Could this be true?

Fig 1: source Patt et al 2010

Fig 2: Source Pett et al 2010

Fig.2 A shows the full set of alternative scenarios for the expected number of people affected by climate disasters and B shows the expected number being killed.  It is clear that with no development, there will be an upward trend in the number of people being affected and killed in LDCs on average due to extreme events.

More importantly, the result suggests that vulnerability may rise in the next two decades and start raising less in the three decades that follows, as in the case in scenario A2. On the other hand, in scenario B1 there might actually be a falling level of death and people being affected.

The implication of this research should be alarming, the fact that the majority of increases in vulnerability will happen in the next 20 years in LDCs. This points to an urgent and immediate need to give financial and technical assistances to LDCs in order to aid their adaptation and prevent disasters like Haiyan happening elsewhere. 

Personally, I think no matter how much CO2 emission could be reduced, increases in vulnerability will certainty exist in the next 20 years in LDCs. As humanity we should stop being so occupy with determining the numbers for the next Kyoto protocol in 2015 and actually start giving assistance to those who are in need.