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What is left in the wake of Typhoon Hagupit

Miranda Cahn, Save the Children New Zealand’s Director of International Programmes talks about what is left in the wake of Typhoon Hagupit in the Philippines.

As the flood waters recede in the coastal villages of south east Philippines – what is left in its wake is a very real reminder of what the future looks like, not just in that island nation but in many other parts of the world.

In my line of work I get to see first-hand the impacts climate change has on children. It’s real and it’s happening. Being properly prepared for climate change is going to make the difference between life and death for many poor, vulnerable children and their families. It really is that stark.

It’s sobering to note that in the last thirty years, the number of children affected by disasters has tripled to 175 million per year.

The largest peacetime evacuation took place in the Philippines when Typhoon Hagupit appeared on the horizon less than a fortnight ago. Three quarters of a million people were evacuated from low-lying coastal regions and many are living in 3,186 evacuation centres across seven affected regions. The loss of life was tiny compared to the super Typhoon Haiyan the year before – not just because this typhoon was weaker – but because people were better prepared.

But what happens to those whose very way of life is threatened by climate change and who have nowhere else to go. What then? I’ve just recently returned from a poor, remote region in Eastern Nepal called Udayapur. Many families can only grow enough food to last for three months and they need to find work to feed their families for the remaining nine months. Parents and young people take ramshackle buses into cities like Kathmandu, over the border into India, or overseas, where they work anywhere they can for tiny wages.

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Around 40% of children in Nepal need to work to supplement their families’ income and around 1 in 3 children are malnourished. Udayapur’s climate is changing. It's December now and it’s supposed to be about 12 degrees, but the barometer has not gone below 22 degrees so far this month. Already they have had a hot summer and are suffering due to a shortfall in their farm produce. Winter is when they sow their vegetables and pulses. They can't afford another crop failure.

At Save the Children we’re working with families in many different countries to give them the skills they need to adapt their livelihoods, and make them resilient to climate change and the increasing risk of disasters. That means growing crops and animal feed which is more resistant to drought, warm weather and floods. It means adopting best agriculture practice to produce a range of food crops to spread the risk. Save the Children can help families to have food available year around and have enough income to send their children to school, rather than watching them take that ramshackle bus over the hills to who knows where.

Preparing these people for a changing climate is urgent work and at the cutting edge of development aid. Recent estimates state that the world needs US$100 billion per year up to 2050 to effectively tackle climate change.

Currently only a fraction of that is spent.

That percentage surely must climb as we realise just what danger our children are in.


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