Saving Lives in a Changing Climate

When not one, but four, hurricanes pummeled poverty-stricken Haiti between September and November of 2008, relief agencies struggled to deliver emergency aid before the next storm rolled in. Four years earlier, the United States received a costly and deadly reminder that natural disasters wreck havoc on wealthy countries, too. Hurricane Katrina left 80 percent of New Orleans flooded as levees failed to keep out water, emergency response was insufficient, and thousands took refuge in a Superdome that did not meet Red Cross Safety standards.

As cyclone activity increases around the world, The International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) is working to reduce the impact of natural disasters with advanced preparation in response to weather forecasts. The number of hurricanes in the North Atlantic alone was above average for nine of 11 years before 2005, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change. While the Red Cross/Red Crescent Climate Centre in the Netherlands, founded in 2002, has not found climate change to be directly responsible for any single natural disaster, increasing evidence that rising temperatures lead to storms that are more frequent and more severe makes early preparation all the more important. That is why we are investing more resources into early warning systems that address the risks of extreme weather events in a changing climate.

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