A quake’s lessons for our climate change response

Today marks the first anniversary of an event that arrested global attention — for a while. On April 25, 2015, a 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck Nepal, killing nearly 9,000 people and destroying a million homes. It was Nepal’s worst natural disaster in nearly a century.

While the earthquake has been relegated to yesterday’s news, it’s a disaster that continues to unfold for many. Hundreds of thousands of people made homeless from last April are living through their first winter in tin huts and tents. The National Reconstruction Authority, set up as a coordinated effort in the aftermath of the quake, only began work this January, nearly nine months after the quake.

The disaster continues to produce would-be victims who still lack shelter, livelihood options and survival necessities. The distribution of aid, which poured in weeks after the earthquake struck, has been mired in the same kinds of gridlock that have saddled Nepalese politics more recently.

For me, the one-year anniversary is a good opportunity to not only remember the victims, but to also think hard about how we prepare for the unexpected. Last April, these questions came to me forcefully and instilled a sense of urgency like never before.

As a climate change specialist with the United Nations Development Programme, I had gone to Kathmandu to understand how we could best assist a government-wide response to long-term climate change in Nepal. Over the week of the mission, we scoped out the needs, challenges, and possible levers for addressing the effects of climate change over 20 to 50 years for the government.

What should be prioritised? How do we ensure that the national budget can allocate funds to tackle this issue for the long haul? How do we ensure that all related ministries understand the range of ways in which climate change could affect building and transport infrastructure, cropping patterns, and the changes that need to be made to protect structures?

These were questions the government wanted to address, but burgeoning bureaucracy coupled with internal politics have up to now made it challenging to create lasting plans for the long term. It is a struggle not confined to Nepal alone. Like other so-called “least developed countries”, Nepal struggles to make long-term planning a priority.

I was in Nepal at the right or wrong time — depending on how you view it — just before the earthquake struck. Standing in front of an immigration officer at Tribhuvan International Airport, waiting for my passport to be stamped, there was a low-frequency shudder. Then came a distinct tremble, and the building lurched sideways with a sound like a groan. Everyone rushed towards the nearest exit, a fare gate. Airport staff swiped some of us through; others vaulted over the gates.

Out in the parking lot, I turned to the man next to me and asked when the last earthquake had been. No, he shook his head, this has not happened in his lifetime. Eighty years ago, he added, trembling ever so slightly from shock and emotion.

From my overpriced van-taxi back to town hours after the quake, I passed crowds of people gathering in open spaces amid downed power lines and collapsed retaining walls. By the next day, even road dividers had been colonised by makeshift tents as people settled outdoors for the long haul.

In that long, restless night trying to sleep on shaking ground, it hit me that our team had been talking about this very thing all week: Preparedness against disasters, and how to better mobilise resources for faster recovery.

Over the next few days and weeks, it was evident that even though earthquakes are statistically much more likely to occur in Nepal than in most places, dealing with earthquakes is not a fact of life. As I settled in for the night in the parking lot of the hotel — it was safer sleeping in the parking lot than in the hotel building — I watched as locals crept into the compound overnight with babies and children, not certain if the buildings they were in would withstand the next aftershock.

Like earthquakes in Nepal, climate change is a certainty that keeps going unaddressed.

In the year that has passed, we have also witnessed the signing of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. While the agreement is historic for the unprecedented degree of cooperation, it also contains less-known achievements, such as the call for increasing support for adaptation, especially for least developed countries.

Addressing these issues could not be more urgent. Nepal, for example, is considered one of the most vulnerable in the world to climate change. It is not simply more vulnerable because of its higher exposure to the potential effects, such as glacial melt, landslides and flooding, but because of low adaptive capacity.

A lack of access to safety nets, coupled with less-resilient infrastructure, lack of resources and governance roadblocks, makes it more challenging for institutions and individuals to respond to disasters.

Many countries need to urgently implement effective warning systems and evacuation procedures, and mobilise resources for rebuilding infrastructure as well as livelihoods in the wake of disaster. They need to recognise that floods, seasonal drought, and coastal fluxes are likely to intensify and become more frequent with climate change.

Unlike earthquakes, climate change does not recognise geological fault lines, but brings widespread effects to communities across the globe.

An increase in the frequency and intensity of the El Nino climate cycle, for example, has caused untold suffering from haze-choked Singapore to a flooded Mississippi.

For me, while the global community has made progress to recognise climate change as a priority, this could not come fast enough for a country like Nepal. Readiness — to deal with disasters, including earthquakes — was overlooked with tragic effect.

With climate change, however, we have the slight benefit of a better ability to model and predict a likely range of impacts.

We should use this window of opportunity to do better. If we do not, the results will be just as devastating.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Theresa Wong is a sustainability researcher and consultant from Singapore. She has been a lecturer, researcher and policy analyst on environment and development issues for more than a decade. More recently, she was a technical specialist in climate change adaptation at the United Nations Development Programme.