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According to worrying projections made by international charitable organisation Oxfam, the world’s current humanitarian aid system is facing potential collapse due to the surging rise in climate-based crises.
Climate crises pose serious threat to global aid, according to Oxfam. Image: Oxfam.
Specifically, Oxfam’s new report, The Right to Survive, claims the humanitarian aid system is not ‘fit for purpose’ and that the number of people likely to be affected by rising climatic crises is set to rise by 54 percent to 375 million over the next six years.
Citing a combination of entrenched poverty, people migrating to densely populated slums and a political failure to address associated risks, Oxfam’s report suggests that the world must reassess and reengineer the way it prevents, prepares for, and responds to disasters around the globe.
In collating the data taken from 6,500 climate-related disasters since 1980 – not including wars, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions – Oxfam’s report claims the number of people set to be affected by such crises is set to jump by 133 million to an average of 375 million per year by 2015.
“Just to deal with the increased numbers, the world needs to increase its humanitarian aid spending from 2006 levels of $14.2 billion to at least $25 billion a year,” warns Oxfam. “Even this increase – the equivalent of only $50 per affected person – is still woefully inadequate to meet their basic needs.”
Oxfam also notes that aid is often distributed on the basis of political preference, which makes monetary award unfair. For example, it highlights that an average of $1,241 USD was spent on each victim of the Asian tsunami in 2004, while only $23 USD was spent on those affected by the crisis in Chad.
In order to directly combat the projected funding shortfall, Oxfam is launching the Here and Now campaign, which it describes as its most ambitious ever. The campaign aims to raise an additional 40 million GBP (approx. $45 million USD) in the next five years.
Further to its funding drive, the Here and Now campaign will also call on rich countries to commit to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions to help keep global warming “as far below 2°C as possible,” and provide a minimum of $50 billion per year in finance to assist poorer nations as they struggle to adapt to climate change.
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