US Faces Hurricane Season Alongside Coronavirus

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Wade Austin Ellis/UNSPLASH

Coronavirus Pandemic Threatens to Suffocate US Hurricane Response

June 1 marks the start of hurricane season in the US, only this year, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is bracing for a higher than usual amount of hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean, where the norm is typically six. Social distancing to prevent COVID-19 is a new problem to factor into evacuation plans this year. New Jersey says widespread evacuations will be a last resort and will consider renting hotel rooms to accommodate social distancing. Concerns linger over stretched financial resources and rescue teams. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) says it has created a national coordination center for non-COVID-19 disaster response but city and state officials are wary, with concerns circulating over whether they will be left to bear the costs of both crises. Nearly half of Houston’s $20 million disaster relief fund has already been spent on coronavirus and 2017 Hurricane Harvey response. Although the US Congress has passed bills allocating nearly $3 trillion in response to the pandemic, only $150 billion or so in aid is set aside for states and cities. New York City’s Comptroller, referring to the fact that New York state is now the highest number of cases in the US and the world, says the city is not prepared for a storm, let alone a hurricane and ensuing crisis on top of the COVID-19 crisis already underway. (Reuters). 

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Pakistan Faces Second Locust Battle, Challenging Food Security Amid Virus Fight and Refugee Concerns

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Lumensoft Technologies/UNSPLASH

Pakistan Readies for Second Battle Against Crop-Devouring Locusts

An impending second infestation in as many years that could destroy sugarcane, cotton, rice, fruit and vegetable crops is a deeper concern for farmers than the current novel coronavirus pandemic. The Sindh province chief minister warns of a “massive locust attack” expected from Iran in mid-May, worse than the previous year. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is warning of dire food insecurity if the crops are eaten by locusts, prices of staples like flour and vegetables skyrocketing and losses as high as $2.8 billion for summer crops and $2.2 billion for winter crops. Last year, Pakistan suffered its worst attack of locusts since 1993 in all four of its provinces, for which it was unprepared, and a repeat this year in the midst of COVID-19 could be catastrophic for Pakistan’s poorest communities. Unprecedented rains in Sindh’s desert led to vegetation cover that enabled locust breeding and crop attacks. FAO and climate scientists say warming oceans have led to increased cyclones in the Indian Ocean, causing heavy rainfall in the Arabian Peninsula and Horn of Africa, creating the perfect environment for locust breeding and the resulting swarms seen in East Africa, the Middle East and South Asia. Insects are laying eggs in nearly 40% of Pakistan and previously unaffected regions are now also impacted. Experts predict swarms, much larger than the ones in 2019, breeding in Pakistan’s deserts are likely to be joined by others in Iran, with more arriving from the Horn of Africa around July. The swarms are expected to be much larger than those in 2019 and travel in swarms of 30 to 50 million insects that cover 93 miles and devour 200 tons of crops per day. (Reuters)

Analysis

Per UNHCR estimates, Pakistan hosts 1.4 million Afghan refugees within its borders. As of today, Pakistan has 35,788 COVID-19 cases, the majority split between the Punjab and Sindh provinces, where 770 people have died. Neighboring Iran has 115,000 COVID-19 cases and hosts approximately 3 million Afghans. Together, Pakistan and Iran, host 90% of the world’s 2.7 million Afghan refugees. Afghanistan has 5,639 COVID-19 cases, and Afghan refugees in Iran and Pakistan, despite persistent violence in the country, including a horrific terror attack this week, continue to return home due to the coronavirus pandemic in Iran and Pakistan. Meanwhile, it’s the holy month of Ramadan, ending in late May, where an uptick in food buying and consumption is likely, all of which can have an impact on market supply and demand, further contributing to concerns of regional food insecurity. With pandemic response, economic losses and additional humanitarian needs converging with spikes in food insecurity, violence and refugee returns, the pressures are immense for not only some of the world’s most vulnerable populations but also those living on the margins of survival. 

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Weakened by War & Flood, Yemen Fights Twin Health Threat

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Annie Spratt/UNSPLASH

Weakened by War and Floods, Yemen Fights Twin Health Threat

“The War and climate change have created a humanitarian crisis.” This is what Abdulla Bin Ghouth, an epidemiologist from Yemen’s Hadhramout University College of Medicine says as Yemen announces an official tally of 72 cases of the novel coronavirus and 13 deaths, but health experts say the real numbers are likely much higher due to serious under-counting in the north and south of the country and lack of testing and tracking in the Arabina Peninsula. Life appears to be continuing as normal though, as people gather in crowded spaces, don’t social distance or take any protective measures despite government warnings. Yemen has been crippled by years of war and severe food shortages and now a wave of diseases linked to heavy rains are on the rise, straining an already shattered healthcare system, which health experts warn will be pushed to the brink of collapse with the coronavirus pandemic. Doctors are dealing with a rise in mosquito-borne diseases following rains and flash floods that began in January and brought with it a sharp spike in dengue and other viral fever cases, now disrupting the fight against the novel coronavirus. Where doctors usually saw three cases a day, in the past month alone, they have seen hundreds of patients with dengue and viral fevers and dozens of deaths. One hospital noted 6,000 cases of fever in only two months. Now also dealing with a shortage of testing kits and medical equipment, doctors are finding it impossible to diagnose whether patients are infected with COVID-19 or something else. (Reuters)

Analysis

As of today, Yemen has 85 positive COVID-19 cases. Since 2015, Yemen has suffered three Cholera outbreaks, a water-borne illness, where water has become weaponized in the civil war. Laws regulating water use are lacking, while climate stresses like extreme heat and drought have worsened social and health problems. Climate security experts count Yemen among countries that are at risk for increased conflict borne by climate change-fueled drought and water scarcity, made worse because the growing humanitarian needs strain the state’s ability to deal with the climate risks. 

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Coronavirus Underscores Climate Health Threats

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Ryoji Iwata/UNSPLASH

Coronavirus Pandemic Underscores Climate Health Threats

Health experts warn that vulnerability to climate-related health threats is likely greater than previously believed. This extends from healthcare facilities built in the path of floodplains and wildfires, inabilities to track outbreaks, to privileged classes realizing that they can’t escape ill-equipped local healthcare systems during a lockdown. This new realization has led some countries to begin plans for new hospitals and additional funding to help secure vaccines. The virus has also made clear the nexus of extreme poverty and pandemic, bringing home to some the realities of the deep interconnectedness a subsistence farmer has to food insecurity and a laborer has to rising global temperatures. Elena Villalobos Prats, World Health Organization climate change and public health expert says two-thirds of the countries party to the 2015 Paris Agreement have considered climate threats to health in its national climate plans but only half have adaptation plans to its health systems, while only 0.5% of international climate finance is spent on health threats. Experts are now focused on whether the novel coronavirus crisis can be a learning tool to drive awareness of global vulnerability to better prepare the world for the next big health threat of climate change. (Reuters)

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News Study Shows Heat and Humidity Extremes Exceed Human Survival

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Jaroslaw Kwoczala/UNSPLASH

Heat and Humidity Extremes Exceeding Limits of Human Survival

The study shows the dangerous new levels are happening now and come 50 years earlier than expected in another new study published last Friday, led by Columbia University.  Researchers at NASA, UK’s Loughborough University and Columbia University examined global surface temperature data from nearly 8,000 weather stations using wet bulb readings to find dangerous spikes in heat waves that will make certain parts of the Earth uninhabitable, spurring “climate refugees” and threatening global security. Unlike previous research that looked at multiple points over large areas across the world, this study looked at hyper-local wet bulb temperatures, getting a more accurate picture of localized spikes that were not expected until at least 2070. Local instances of extreme humid heat doubled from 1979 to 2017, and brief spikes that usually lasted an hour or two at a time are now expected to become more frequent as global temperatures rise. Southeastern US States are a hotspot for temperature spikes as are coastal regions of the Middle East, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, northwestern Australia and Red Sea border regions and the Gulf of California, and show how climate change is affecting human life now, outside of a pandemic, and well before expected. (NBC)

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Displacement Numbers Drop in East & Horn of Africa But Climate Concerns Persist

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IDP Numbers Drop in East and Horn of Africa in 2019 But Climate Concerns Persist

In its new report, Region on the Move, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) says the drastic drop in regional internally displaced persons (IDPs) is due to 1.3 million Ethiopians returning home who had previously fled communal violence. In mid 2019, the region was home to 8.1 million IDPs and 3.5 million refugees and asylum-seekers but by year’s end, 3.5 million refugees and asylum seekers remained and 6.3 million displaced, accounting for a 22% drop. Despite this, IOM found 2019 displacements persisted largely due to climate and environmental hazards such as the prolonged drought in the Horn of Africa, which impacted food security in parts of Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda and Djibouti. Concerns persist about new displacements in Somalia and South Sudan, as well as climate displacements. Last year, flooding and heavy rains devastated the region and the rains created the right conditions for desert locusts whose breeding is currently impacting East African crops again in Ethiopia and Somalia, but spreading to Djibouti, Eritrea, Kenya, Tanzania, Sudan and South Sudan. (Reliefweb)

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