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DISASTER RISKS FACING SMALL ISLAND STATES

April 13, 2015

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Rising sea levels are bad for poor cities 8

Fukushima radiation reaches Canada 6

Asia’s urban floods are man-made 12

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UN disaster risk chief highlights existential threat facing small island states

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The head of the United Nations office dealing with disaster risk mitigation has today underlined

her concerns about the future develop-ment of Small Island Developing States (SIDS) in the face of extreme weather events.

“Climate change combined with poverty and exposed infrastructure and hous-ing, will lead to a significant increase in economic losses due to increased wind damage and sea level rise,” said Margareta Wahlström, the Special Rep-resentative of the Secretary-General on Disaster Risk Reduction and head of the UN’s Office for Disaster Risk Reduc-tion (UNISDR).

“It is remarkable that in the two weeks since the World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction, both the Republic of Vanuatu and the Federated States of Micronesia have been forced to declare a state of emergency,” she said. “Two separate Category 5 cyclones which have caused several deaths, population displacement and widespread destruc-tion.”

Ms. Wahlström pointed out that many millions of people across the Philip-pines were also facing the threat of Typhoon Maysak this weekend.

“The Pacific is a constant reminder to the rest of the world of what is at stake this year,” she said, referring to the in-ternational agreements on climate and a new global development agenda, which are under discussion this year and which aim to complement the framework on disaster risk reduction agreed last month in Sendai.

“For many small island states, expected future losses are not just dispropor-tionately high, they pose an existen-tial threat,” Ms. Wahlström stressed. “Unless disaster risk is reduced these countries will struggle to meet the de-velopment needs of their people.”

Photo: UN Photo/ Logan Abassi

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Radiation fromFukushima detected in Canada

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Seawater collected at a dock in Ucluelet, a town on the west coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia on February 19, 2015 has tested positive for cesium-134

and cesium-137.

Only trace amounts of cesium-137 and cesium-134 (radioac-tive isotopes) were found in the seawater collected off the British Columbia dock on Vancouver Island, but the results of the findings are significant says Ken Buesseler, a marine chemist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI) who has been measuring radioactivity in Pacific seawater since 2011.

In March 2011, an earthquake and tsunami struck the Fuku-shima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, about 130 miles north-east of Tokyo, Japan. The event sparked a triple meltdown of three reactors at the plant, forcing the evacuation of more than 160,000 people and contaminating food, water, and the air. It was the worst nuclear disaster since the Cher-nobyl disaster in 1986.

The water sample collected in British Columbia contained 1.4 Becquerels per cubic meter of Cesium-134 and 5.8 Bec-querels per cubic meter of Cesium-137. The Becquerel is a unit of measure based on the number of radioactive decay events per second per 260 gallons of water. So based on the recent finding of 1.4 Becquerels per cubic meter of ce-sium-134 (written as 1.4 Bq/m3.), the finding is 1,000 times lower than the safe level set by the U.S. Environmental Pro-tection Agency (EPA).

The significance of the cesium-134 readings

While Buesseler says the radioactivity readings are “very low,” there are a couple of factors that make the cesium-134 an important tracer in tracking radioactivity pollution from the Fukushima nuclear plant.

First, cesium-134 does not occur naturally and is formed in nuclear reactors. Second, cesium-134 has a half-life of two-and-a-half years. This means that any cesium-134 found in the ocean today has a recent source. This is an important indicator for tracking what’s going on at the Fukushima power plant in almost real-time.

Even more significant is the funding WHOI has now re-ceived from the National Science Foundation. The funds will allow Woods Hole scientists to collect 250 seawater samples between Alaska and Hawaii in May this year. Ad-ditionally, The Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California will be collecting 10 offshore seawater sam-ples during their research cruises.

Photo: UN Photo/ IAEA/ Greg Webb

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Rising sea levels will be devastating for poor cities

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Rising sea levels don’t distinguish between wealthy and poor cities.

Nevertheless, Paul Brownre-ports for the Climate News Network that sea-level rise poses the greatest threat to developing cities because they have the fewest resources to protect themselves.

New scientific analysis of sat-ellite data indicates that sea levels are increasing 3.1 mil-limeters (.12 inches) per year, faster than expected. The findings are detailed in a new report,Underfunded, Under-prepared, Underwater? Cities at Risk, published by E3G, a Europe-based nonprofit that promotes sustainable devel-opment. The research was conducted by maritime organi-zations and space agencies, the article says.

London and Rotterdam are among the cities that already have flood barriers and can afford to replace them in 30 years. New York City is strengthening its defenses with the Dryline, a ten-mile flood shield. By contrast, “delta areas in Egypt, Vietnam, Bang-ladesh and China — vital to each of the nation’s food sup-ply — are already losing land to the sea,” Brown writes.

Photo: UN Photo/ UNICEF/ Marco Dormino

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India’s ban on beef could have devastating consequences

Photo: UN Photo/ Kibae Park

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India’s place in the world as the second largest exporter of beef is in jeopardy as the Home Minister contemplates a nationwide ban on cow slaughter. Muslims are a minority popula-tion and as such, see a ban on beef as an assault on India’s secularism.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh has been contemplating using his position and power to im-plement a beef ban across the whole of India, a move that could effectively destroy the coun-try’s beef industry, and possibly turn out to be unconstitutional.

The recent ban on slaughtering cows in the state of Maharashtra was quickly followed with similar bans on the slaughter of cows in Rajasthan and Haryana. Most people now see the ban going on in BJP ruled states as the prelude to a nationwide ban on cattle slaughter.

With killing cows now considered a crime, the only real difference is one of faith, and that is starting to cause a lot of rumblings. Hindus make up 80 percent of India’s population, with 1.2 billion people. They regard cows as being Divine. The Muslim population of the country numbers 180 million, and they eat beef.

Secularism in India is not the same as secularism in the West

Many Muslims see the ban on slaughtering cattle as evidence of an assault on one of the main principles of India’s independence, secularism. Secularism is a key principle that de-clares that people of different religions are equal under the law.

Westerners see secularism as being a principle of democracy with two major points, one, a separation of church and state, and two, a belief that all religions are equal under the law. When the 42nd Amendment to the Constitution of India was enacted in 1976, India’s pream-ble to their Constitution proclaimed they were a secular nation. But the idea of India being a secular nation is one for debate, and the issue has caused a number of problems.

Muslims adhere to Sharia-based Muslim Personal Law while Hindus, Christians, and other religions adhere to common law. So this means that if the Indian government imposes a law that bans the slaughter of cows, or, in other words, imposes a “uniform civil code,” Muslims claim the law would be based on majoritarian Hindu sensibilities and ideals. And they would be correct in this regard.

India is still a meat-eating country, regardless of the law

Not only is India the second largest exporter of cattle in the world, but it is the fifth largest consumer of beef in the world. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his BJP Party has said the cow needs greater protection, “despite the cost to the country’s multi-billion-dollar beef in-dustry.”

Economically, a nationwide ban on slaughtering cattle would cripple India’s cattle industry, putting thousands of people out of work. Additionally, the overall health of the population would take a severe hit. From 1981 to 2001, meat consumption in India rose from 2,600 mil-lion tons to 5,300 million tons. This is because the Indian diet has become protein-based instead of carbohydrate-based.

But perhaps the people most hurt by this ban will be the many, many poor and marginalized who are the main consumers of beef. These numbers include many Hindus, of course. Add-ed to this are the 2,226 endangered tigers India has said they are trying to save from extinc-tion. The Merinnews says: “The blindfolded state government is showing more concern to-ward Hindu sentiments by neglecting other inter-linked aspects.”

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Asia’s urban floods are manmade

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From Yangon to Bangkok to Manila and across Asia, ur-ban floods fueled by climate

change are a deepening problem. Amy Leung emphasizes in a blog post for the Asia Development Bank (ADB) that it is erroneous to characterize these events as “nat-ural disasters.” Instead, the floods often result from insufficient city planning and engineering, writes Leung, part of the ADB’s Water Team.

Over-development in urban ar-eas has left waterways without adjacent terrain to accommodate temporary overflow. “Unstoppable expansion of slums on riverbanks prevents engineering interven-tions and maintenance,” the blog post says. The straightening of rivers means water travels faster than in meandering rivers. An-other problem is lack of drainage systems and pipes blocked with garbage.

To tackle the flooding, the ADB recommends that municipal lead-ers ditch fragmented planning in favor of comprehensive strate-gies. Stronger municipal leader-ship might have mitigated the rise of informal settlements along riv-erbanks, the post says. “Engineer-ing solutions and technologies is not enough,” Leung writes. “We need to shift to a more holistic approach that takes into account ecological and social considera-tions.”

Photo: UN Photo/ Evan Schneider

14 Photo: UN Photo/ Tim McKulka

New development goals must take pollution seriously

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Pollution is likely to be the most pressing global health issue in the coming years without effective prevention and clean-up efforts, experts say.

Air, water and soil pollution already kills nearly nine million people a year and cripples the health of more than 200 million people worldwide. Far more people die from pollution than from malaria and HIV/AIDS combined.

Development and rising pollution levels remain closely linked, as clearly evidenced in China and India. However, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) offer a major opportunity to curb pollution and turn econo-mies around the world towards clean and green development pathways.

“The key to development and improving the health of everyone requires new, clean approaches to economic development,” said Fernando Lu-gris, ambassador and director general of political affairs with the Minis-try of Foreign Affairs of Uruguay.

“You can’t ignore the global impact of toxic chemicals in the SDGs,” Lu-gris told IPS.

At least 143,000 man-made chemicals have been registered, with the majority untested for potential health impacts. In addition, the world generates more than 400,000 tonnes of hazardous waste every year, writes Julian Cribb in“Poisoned Planet: How constant exposure to man-made chemicals is putting your life at risk”.

Fresh snow at the top of Mount Everest is too polluted to drink. One study found newborn babies are contaminated with an average of 212 different chemicals, Cribb has said.

The SDGs will be a new, universal set of goals, targets and indicators all countries are expected to use to frame their agendas and political poli-cies from 2016 to 2030. These largely expand on the Millennium Devel-opment Goals(MDGs) in place between 2000-2015 which were focused on poor countries.

Although not all of the MDGs have been achieved, they were crucial in focusing development aid and policies and a highly visible yardstick to measure international efforts.

The 17 proposed SDGs include targets to end poverty, eliminate hunger, attain healthy lives, provide quality education, attain gender equality and reduce inequalities. SDG 3 to “Ensure healthy lives and promote wellbe-ing for all at all ages” has a specific pollution reduction target: “by 2030 substantially reduce the number of deaths and illnesses from hazardous chemicals and air, water, and soil pollution and contamination”.

“The target is great but we are troubled by the currently proposed indi-cator,” said Richard Fuller of Pure Earth, an NGO formerly known as the Blacksmith Institute, which helps to clean up toxic waste sites in the poorest countries.

NB: Press Cutting ServiceThe Urban Gateway culls articles from daily press coverage from around the world. These

articles are posted on the Urban Gateway by way of keeping all users informed about matters of interest. The opinions expressed in these articles are those of the authors and in no way

reflects the opinion of UN-Habitat

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