Chinese climate expert Dr. Qin Dahe has received the Volvo Group’s Environment Prize 2013

Chinese climate expert Dr. Qin Dahe has received the Volvo Group’s Environment Prize 2013, which has a prize sum of 1.5 million kronor.

Dr. Qin Dahe

Dr. Qin is one of the key contributors to the new reports from the UN climate panel (IPPC). He also attracted wide attention last year for his report on how climate change leads to more extreme weather events.

The report was the first to scientifically show that extreme weather and climate phenomena have become more frequent over the last 50 years. The findings showed a clear connection between climate change and periods of extreme conditions, such as extended droughts and heat waves, as well as torrential storms and rains.

The Volvo Award Jury called the report “a game-changer”, and wrote in its motivation: “the report demonstrated for the first time a clear link between climate change and many extreme events, an issue of immediate relevance for human well-being in many parts of the world”.

Dr Qin is also a leading expert on cryosphere in central high Asia and its importance. The cryosphere is one of the main components of the Earth’s climate system, comprising snow, river and lake ice, sea ice, glaciers, ice shelves, and frozen ground. Especially, glaciers have important impacts on water resources and ecosystems for more than two billion people in Asia.

Dr Qin has led several scientific expeditions to the Himalayas, and also been on expeditions to the Antarctic.

“There is no doubt that the major part of the glaciers in the Himalayas is disappearing fast. But one of the research areas we will tackle is the question of whether the Greenland ice cap is stable or not. And as well, the risks for more extreme occurrences such as drought, floods and storms,” said Dr Qin in a statement from Volvo Group.

The prize will be handed out at a ceremony in Stockholm on November 26. More

 

Australia fires: Is this the new normal?

Bushfires in Australia's New South Wales could merge to form a massive blaze, the fire commissioner has said, as teams battle fires across the state.

Three fires near Lithgow, a city by the Blue Mountains, are thought to be at risk of merging into one fire front.

New South Wales has been badly hit by bushfires after the hottest September on record. It has declared a state of emergency.

Officials say conditions are likely to worsen this week.

NSW Rural Fire Services Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said that the fire at State Mine in Lithgow was at risk of merging with the fire at Mount Victoria.

"Modelling indicates that there's every likelihood under the forecast weather conditions that these two fires, particularly up in the back end of the mountains will merge at some point... there is every likelihood that these two fires will join up," he said.

He added that in a "worst-case scenario" the fire could merge with a third fire at Springwood but said: "With the continued success of the fire-fighting effort, let's hope that it doesn't extend all that far eastward."

Fire crews have been back-burning - a controlled burn aimed at managing a fire - to try to prevent the fires merging.

In a briefing on Monday morning, Mr Fitzsimmons said that 58 blazes were still burning, with 14 out of control.

NSW declared a state of emergency on Sunday, allowing emergency services to order mandatory evacuations, and cut gas and power supplies if needed.

"While it may cause distress, I would rather be apologising for inconvenience than dealing with devastation and despair," Mr Fitzsimmons said.

Caroline Russell from Winmalee, in the Blue Mountains area, told the BBC that she had seen the fire move closer and closer to her home over the past few days.

"We were quite worried initially. What we thought was back burning seemed to get out of control. That's when we saw the water bombers come over," she said.

"The fire brigade say we're in no immediate danger at the moment but we should keep a watch on the situation. We're constantly monitoring it."

Exhausted firefighters

Fire fighting efforts are set to continue this week, with weather conditions expected to be the most challenging this Wednesday, with warm weather and strong winds predicted.

"The challenging aspect of the forecast is that they're forecasting a strengthening of winds for Wednesday now, only by another 10km/h (6mph), but that's still going to be quite problematic," Mr Fitzsimmons said.

One man has died - possibly of a heart attack - while trying to protect his home. Hundreds of people have been left homeless by the bushfires.

Australia's military is investigating whether a training exercise using explosives may have started the State Mine bushfire.

On Monday, an 11-year-old boy in the Port Stephens area was charged with deliberately lighting two fires on 13 October. Another boy, 15, has also been arrested over the fires, local media say, citing police.

One of the fires, at Heatherbrae, led to Newcastle Airport being shut and forced hundreds of people to evacuate, local reports said.

With hundreds of houses already destroyed disaster welfare centres have been set up where families can start the planning needed to rebuild their lives, the BBC's Jon Donnison, who is near the community of Winmalee in the Blue Mountains, reports.

Most of the fire fighters are volunteers - many look exhausted, and some have even lost their homes, our correspondent adds. More

 

Extreme weather can be the 'most important cause of poverty'

New research suggests that extreme weather events will keep people poor in many parts of the world.

The authors argue that where disasters like drought are prevalent, they can be the most important cause of poverty.

They say that up to 325 million people will be living in countries highly exposed to natural hazards by 2030.

If aid is not used to reduce these risks, the progress made in fighting poverty could disappear.

The report has been compiled by the Overseas Development Institute.

It examines the relationship between disasters and poverty over the next 20 years, using population projections, climate models and estimations of how governments can cope with extreme events.

The report suggests that up to a third of a billion people could be living in the 49 countries most exposed to the full range of natural hazards and climate extremes in 2030.

In sub-Saharan Africa 118 million people in poverty will face extreme events.

Drought means poverty

The big weather issues that will face most poor people are drought, extreme rainfall and flooding.

An analysis of the data from rural Ethiopia and Andhra Pradesh in India suggests that where there is a strong risk of drought, then drought is also the single most important factor in keeping people poor, outstripping ill health or dowry payments.

"We've often heard that ill health is the biggest cause for impoverishment," said Dr Tom Mitchell, the ODI's head of climate change.

"But in the data, in drought prone areas, the biggest cause is the drought - in areas exposed to these hazards, they are the key causes of impoverishment."

Developed countries haven't recognised the role that these extreme weather events have in keeping people poor, he says.

The big problem is that, at present, money tends to flow in response to disasters, not to prevent them.

Dr Mitchell says the recent Cyclone Phailin in India is a good example.

"The very fact that it killed so few people means that the chances of raising big finance for recovery efforts are going to be pretty slim. It has not got the big numbers attached to it," he said.

"I think there's a direct link between the ability to raise finance and the number of people killed. It's a perverse incentive."

Part of the problem is that donor countries are not prioritising aid at the countries that need it most, in terms of disaster risk reduction.

"We've tended to provide much more financial support to a set of middle income countries, who can manage it better like the Philippines, Mexico and Indonesia who made really great strides in protecting their populations," said Dr Mitchell.

"What we've not done is focus on the poorest countries, the ones most exposed to issues like drought, for example, sub Saharan Africa, we've almost missed it off."

The authors of the report argue that the way that vulnerable countries spend their money needs reforming too. Too often the money is spent on the capital city or on infrastructure and not on the poorest people. More

 

 

At least 5 dead as Cyclone Phailin hits India

NEW DELHI — A gigantic cyclone, one of the strongest ever to hit the Bay of Bengal, pounded India's eastern cost with heavy winds and rain Saturday, as more than half a million people fled the region.

Cyclone Phailin

The Press Trust of India, a local news agency, reported at least 5 people died from heavy rains ahead of the storm. Indian government officials later said early reports of deaths from the storm won't become clear until daybreak Sunday, the Associated Press reported. Hundreds of trees were uprooted before the eye of the storm even made landfall early evening local time and flights, trains and shipping operations were canceled and power shut down in six districts in the coastal area.

The India Meteorological Department said the cyclone made landfall near Gopalpur, India, with sustained winds of 124 mph — equivalent to a Category 3 hurricane.

Cyclone Phailin caused one of the largest evacuation operations in Indian history, with 600,000 people moved to higher ground in the coastal state of Odisha, which is expected to bear the brunt of the storm.

Electricity had been cut off in the entire state as a precaution, said Indian navy retired commodore A.K Patnaik, in Bhubaneshwar, the capital of Odisha, who was reached by phone before he shut it down to conserve power.

"It has been raining very heavily here since yesterday, the streets are flooded, and electricity was shut down this morning," he said. "The streets are empty, everyone is indoors, and people stocked up on groceries and essentials yesterday."

Satellite images showed the cyclone filling nearly the entire Bay of Bengal, an area larger than France that has seen the majority of the world's worst recorded storms, including a 1999 cyclone that killed 10,000.

"If it's not a record, it's really, really close," University of Miami hurricane researcher Brian McNoldy told The Associated Press. "You really don't get storms stronger than this anywhere in the world ever."

To compare it to killer U.S. storms, McNoldy said Phailin is nearly the size of Hurricane Katrina, which killed 1,200 people in 2005 and caused devastating flooding in New Orleans, but also has the wind power of 1992's Hurricane Andrew, which packed 265 kph (165 mph) winds at landfall in Miami.

"The storm has the potential to cause huge damage," L.S. Rathore, director-general of the Indian Meteorlogical Department told reporters.

The epicenter of the cyclone is likely to be close to the major port of Paradip in Odisha.

"We have stopped all cargo operations," Paradip Port Trust Chairman Sudhanshu Shekhara Mishra told the Press Trust of India, a local news agency. "We have set up control rooms and are ready with a contingency plan. We have cleared all vessels. People have been evacuated from low-lying areas."

The state has created 800 shelters as government workers and volunteers put together food packages for relief camps.

"I don't want people to panic," said Naveen Patnaik, chief minister of Odisha told PTI, calling for everyone to do their part in helping relief operations. More

 

Namibia battles worst drought in decades

Opuwo, Namibia - The Tjikundi family sits around a small fire boiling a tin pot filled with water and maize - the only food that's available this day. A band of children crawl about, chewing on plastic tubing, and chase the visitors with animated curiosity.

The homestead is spectacular in its bareness. Soft, dry sand interrupted only by rocks and boulders fashion a molten envy for a lighter, brighter time. The livestock kraal is empty. So too are the granaries.

Scraggy roosters gawk and peck at the dust with fraught expectation while a domestic cat, at total odds with the environment, purrs and curls around people's ankles.

"This year is very bad because we have lost all our cattle," Mukaokondunga Tjikundi, in her early 20s, told Al Jazeera. "Sometimes the children go to bed with empty stomachs. Sometimes they just drink some water and go to sleep."

Hunger and hardship are recurring themes in Kunene, the northwest province in Namibia, considered the hardest-hit region by a drought many consider the worst in decades.

Almost one million people out of Namibia’s 2.3 million population face moderate to serious levels of food insecurity. The Namibian government in May estimated this year's harvest would yield 42 percent less than 2012.

In Kunene, two years of failed rains have devastated millet and maize plantations, dried up watering holes for livestock, and forced a population to search for precarious water supplies. Animals drink stagnant water in dry riverbeds, while some Namibians dig for water across the province and guard any source found with little wooden fences.

'Catastrophe'

"If people can resort to [drinking] dirty water, more are likely to suffer from water-borne diseases and the health situation is likely to deteriorate for animals and humans," Jack Ndemena, water and sanitation officer with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), told Al Jazeera.

"There is nothing and if the rains don’t come, it is going to be a catastrophe."

In May, Namibian President Hifikepunye Pohamba was forced to declare a state of emergency and requested $33.7 million in international support to avert a crisis. Recognising the strain across the country, the IFRC and UNICEF launched appeals for $1.2m and $7.4m, respectively.

President Hifikepunye Pohamba has appealed for aid [EPA]

But little aid has arrived.

On September 2, Algeria donated $1m in food aid but the reaction from the rest of the international community has been poor.

Experts say Namibia’s status as a middle-income country hasn’t helped its appeals. Despite its wealth, the country suffers from high levels of income inequality. One-third of the population lives on less than $1 a day, and Namibia ranked 120 out of 187 countries on the 2012 UNDP Human Development Index.

Malnutrition is the second-most common cause of death recorded for children under five, even in non-drought years. And with the onset of this year’s drought, an estimated 109,000 children under five are at risk of acute malnutrition.

"Namibia still does not feed itself, and the middle-income classification comes from livestock, mining and fisheries industries - [this] does not provide an accurate situation on the ground," Cousins Gwanama, head of the Department of Crop Sciences at the University of Namibia in Windhoek, told Al Jazeera.

And it is unlikely the situation is about to get better.

'Confused'

With little rainfall predicted for later this year, farmers have described the drought as among the harshest in a generation. Granaries are empty as few crops were planted last year. With plateaus unsuitable for grazing, many pastoralist farmers have been forced to leave their homes and families and herd their livestock to higher ground with more vegetation, often involving a few days’ walk.

Accustomed to little rainfall, farmers have survived in semi-arid regions of Namibia for decades. But the total absence of precipition has left many perplexed and concerned, their farms lurching towards economic ruin.

"I thought we understood the environment, nature, but we are almost confused and don’t know what to expect," farmer Toivo Ruhozu told Al Jazeera.

"If the government doesn’t help, we will just have to face death." More