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	The world’s poorest people will bear the brunt of climate change by Sven Harmeling CARE International’s Climate Change Advocacy Coordinator   Eradicating global poverty will become a near-impossible task unless governments take urgent action to tackle the growing injustice of climate change, aid agency CARE International says in response to a major new UN climate impacts report.   Sven Harmeling, CARE International’s Climate Change Advocacy Coordinator said: “The IPCC’s latest report is a study in the sheer injustice of climate change. The world’s poorest people have done the least to cause the climate problem, yet today we have stark new scientific evidence that they are already, and will increasingly, bear the brunt of its impacts.   “From more extreme and intense weather-related disasters, to reduced food security, to rising sea-levels, climate change is fast becoming a scandal of epic proportions for the world’s poorest people – and it’s unfolding right before our eyes.   “But overcoming climate poverty is not a task of charity, it is an act of justice. Climate change is man-made and it can be contained by the actions of human beings. This task falls to the current generation of leaders, and to us all. There is not a moment to lose.”   The latest IPCC report, compiled by hundreds of the world’s leading climate experts on behalf of the UN, describes how climate change constitutes an additional burden for the rural and urban poor and has the potential to push people into chronic poverty, undermining and reversing development gains made over many years.   It also shows that, as global temperatures rise, there is increasing risk of passing critical ‘tipping points’ which may lead to abrupt and irreversible large-scale changes to major ecosystems on which millions of people rely.   Describing the IPCC’s latest report as “another clarion call to action,” CARE wants to see:   Governments working harder than ever to keep global warming to as close to 1.5 degrees as possible to avert extreme climate change.   Developed countries providing far greater financial support to help poor countries address climate impacts, with actions focussing on helping the most vulnerable people and communities to build their resilience to increasing climate disruption, and greater support to help people deal with the loss and damage already occurring.   Efforts to tackle climate change address the underlying causes of poverty and inequality.   The people CARE works with, including many vulnerable women and girls, are often amongst the most marginalised. Climate impacts are increasingly undermining their chances of lifting themselves from poverty.   Enhanced support for thousands of existing climate initiatives around the globe, whether safe-guarding the poor from increasing drought, promoting sustainable and renewable energies or divesting from fossil fuels.   A quick snapshot of CARE’s work in 84 countries reveals how people living in poverty are increasingly being affected by immediate (storms or floods) and longer-term shocks (unpredictable seasons and lack of rainfall which disrupt harvests).   Over recent months CARE has responded to a number of major emergencies including the devastating Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines - the strongest tropical cyclone to make landfall in recorded history - and major flooding in Bolivia affecting some 59,000 families. CARE is also witnessing landslides in Papua New Guinea, flooding and heavy rains in Burundi, flooding in Zimbabwe and an escalating food crisis in both South Sudan and Mali.   Communities CARE works with around the world are already experiencing the impacts of climate change first-hand. In Vietnam, Mozambique and Ecuador, unpredictable weather patterns and more intense storms and drought are particularly affecting people’s ability to grow food.   CARE is working to try to help address many of the risks facing poor and vulnerable people through groundbreaking initiatives including the climate change Adaptation Learning Programme for Africa, initiatives to support highland communities in the Andes who are bearing the brunt of glacial retreat, and projects to restore mangroves and other coastal defenses in parts of Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam (amongst many others).   These programs seek to help communities to address climate-related risks so that the impacts of climate change don’t tip people back into extreme poverty.   At the same time, CARE is advocating for policies and laws at a national and global level that tackle the causes and effects of climate change whilst also promoting the rights and interests of the world’s poorest people.   http://www.careclimatechange.org http://www.care-international.org/news/press-releases.aspx?sid=27   September 2014: A new report “The right climate for development: Why the SDGs must act on climate change”, jointly released by CARE International, Christian Aid, WWF, Greenpeace, CAFOD and Oxfam analyses the findings in the latest series of reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and explains what the science means for people living in poverty: http://www.careclimatechange.org/files/J2795-IPCC_5th_Assessment_v3.pdf Visit the related web page
	Health Care in Danger. Its a matter of life & death by International Committee of the Red Cross   On the occasion of World Health Day, 7 April, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is issuing a report on "Violent incidents affecting the delivery of health care," based on a large number of recorded cases, to raise awareness of attacks on people seeking or providing health care.   Health personnel suffered over 1,800 violent incidents during 2013. As the report says, providing health care has remained as dangerous as ever over the last two years. In addition to reporting on attacks, the study highlights lesser-known types of incident, such as armed personnel disrupting hospital services by forcing their way in, or sexual violence against health personnel.   "Media reports only highlight violence affecting health services in just a few conflict-stricken countries, such as Syria," said Pierre Gentile, head of the ICRC-led "Health Care in Danger" project on the dangers facing health-care services. "However, the ICRC report shows that the violence occurs in other countries too. It is therefore urgent that governments, armed forces and the health-care community step up their efforts to make health-care delivery safer all over the world."   The report is based on information collected in 2012 and 2013 on 1,809 incidents in 23 countries in which violence was used against patients, health-care personnel, ambulances or medical facilities.   "This is the first time that a report of this kind has been based on such a large number of incidents," said Mr Gentile. "It clearly shows that the situation is not improving: all too frequently, health facilities are still being targeted, and patients are being mishandled or even killed."   Attacks on or within health-care facilities represent 40 per cent of all confirmed incidents. In many cases, hospitals and health centres were bombed, shot at or looted, which often resulted in extensive damage.   In some of the incidents, medical personnel were forced to breach medical ethics, for example by being required to withhold treatment from adversaries. In others, they were subjected to direct attacks, including killing, kidnapping and threats.   "We were threatened by armed men who insisted on getting in the car and making us take them where they wanted to go," said Liana Kakesa, the ICRC"s assistant medical coordinator in Bangui, in the Central African Republic. "When we tried to explain our work to them they became angry and threatened us with machetes and rifles."   The indirect consequences of threats against health personnel, which can leave entire communities without any available care, can be at least as serious as any direct use of violence.   The law says hospitals, ambulances and health-care workers must be protected and should never be targeted as they carry out their regular duties. This is often far from the reality. Worldwide, the lack of safe access to health care is causing untold suffering to millions of people.   The fact that health-care personnel are often among the first to be attacked in war and other situations of violence. As a result, untold numbers of people are deprived of the care they need. This is currently one of the most serious and pressing issues of humanitarian concern.   Many of us may only be aware of violent incidents against people providing or receiving health care on the rare occasions when they make international news headlines.   The vast majority of incidents that in one way or another deny the right of wounded or sick people to health care go unreported. While ambulances or hospitals are in some cases directly targeted, health-care workers are far more frequently harassed or threatened by fighters seeking to stop them from treating enemies, or demanding supplies from them.   It is not unusual for ambulances to be deliberately prevented from reaching wounded people, or to be held up for hours at checkpoints. The unacceptable reality is that the neutral status of health-care facilities, transports and personnel is routinely flouted. Not only is the scale of the problem alarming, but the patterns of violence themselves reveal worrying trends.   A recent study by the International Committee of the Red Cross shows that in most cases by far of violence against health-care personnel and facilities, it is local workers who suffer (in 2012, this was the case in over 90 per cent of the more than 900 recorded incidents in 22 countries). And of the people caught up in those incidents, around 25 per cent were killed or wounded. In some cases, later explosions even targeted those trying to assist the victims of an initial explosion – a particularly repugnant practice causing further injury and death and preventing care reaching those who urgently need it.   A single violent incident against health-care facilities or workers can have immeasurable longer-term repercussions on entire communities. When a bomb exploded at a medical graduation ceremony in the Somali capital Mogadishu in 2009, or when polio vaccination workers were killed in Nigeria and other countries, the impact went beyond the immediate loss of life. As a result of these attacks and others like them, many thousands of people every year will not be seen by doctors, or receive life-saving vaccinations, in countries where health care is already under pressure.   Beyond the effects of specific incidents, the general lack of security arising from armed conflict and other violence, while hard to measure, clearly has a major impact on health care. Consider, for example, the large-scale flight of health-care workers in the face of attacks, threats or security concerns. From Afghanistan to remote conflict-affected areas of Colombia, from the Central African Republic to northern Mali, the main problem facing health care today is less the direct attacks against those providing it than the inability of the wounded and the sick to obtain it – which can ultimately be just as deadly.   Violence against health-care facilities and personnel – in all its forms – is not only morally reprehensible, it is illegal under international law. Primary responsibility for ensuring that the law is obeyed lies with States and with combatants. In addition, national legislators and courts must fulfil their responsibility for ensuring that domestic legislation recognizes the criminal responsibility of anyone who violates international humanitarian law, and of actually enforcing such legislation. Offenders must be held accountable.   Humanitarian organizations and health-care personnel themselves also have a critical role to play. Securing acceptance for their activities from all communities and political and military groups – an essential prerequisite to being able to work in sensitive and volatile contexts – has to be based on an unequivocal demonstration of impartiality. Health care has to be provided on the basis of strictly clinical needs and not on any other grounds.   Raising awareness of the human cost of violence against health-care workers, and fostering a culture of responsibility among all concerned, requires a concerted international effort using diplomatic, legal and other means.   The International Committee of the Red Cross, mobilizing the entire International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and other humanitarian organizations, are campaigning to make more people aware of the urgency of the issue, and of the harm that is being caused, so that more suffering may be prevented and lives saved.   http://www.icrc.org/eng/what-we-do/safeguarding-health-care/index.jsp http://www.icrcproject.org/interactive/2013-year-in-review.html Visit the related web page
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