We either embrace early warning systems or brace for climate change chaos
By Agnes Ndaaba
William Butler Yeats in “The second coming” writes; “Turning and turning in the widening gyre, the falcon cannot hear the falconer;things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere, the ceremony of innocence is drowned;The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”
It is said among others that Yeats predicted time up for humanity, and an undoing of civilization as was known at the time when post-World War I Europe left a sense that the institutions upon which a nation depends were in distress and the very fabric of society was fraying.
Today, not by war but by climate change; and with islands swallowed up by oceans, unpredictable rainfall patterns, just to mention a few, there is urgent realisation that unless resolute steps are taken, time might just be up for humanity and the world and its civilization as we know it is about to be undone. Things are falling apart and will continue to until the centre cannot hold. It shall truly be said that climate change has loosed anarchy upon the world! Are we going to sit back because “it is what it is?”
Uganda is reviewing and integrating the country’s disaster risk management policies and plans to reduce climate change impacts. For that reason, Uganda is in the process of formulating its National Adaptation Plans and the National Disaster Preparedness and Management Legislation. These efforts require to be strengthened with the support of willing stakeholders on the national and global scene to make it clear that the country does not lack conviction.
Uganda is not without support. In September 2019, the United Nations launched the Risk-informed Early Action Partnership (REAP) which brings together stakeholders across the climate, humanitarian and development communities with the aim of making one billion people safer from disaster by 2025. The REAP is based on the consensus that only by working together can global ability to act ahead of climate extremes and disasters be strengthened.
How Uganda will use such information and good-will from such support systems is what remains to be seen.
Acting ahead of climate extremes and disasters among others means that Uganda is expected to comprehensively integrate a number of innovative early warning systems tailored to the country’s risk atlas as adaptive measures for climate change, using integrated communication systems to help communities prepare for hazardous climate-related events. This includes lessons learned from past events in order to continually improve proactive responses ahead of disasters.
The appropriate response to an early warning is informed or determined by what danger is being warned about. For the purpose of this article, I will address the response that requires a temporary evacuation of communities in the hope that the relevant authorities will take my practical suggestion into consideration to ensure and safeguard the effectiveness of the early warning system.
Since these systems must include agreed response plans for the government, communities and people to minimize anticipated climate change impacts, the incumbent leadership should gazette safe spaces for temporary relocations of specific vulnerable or affected communities. Government will have an able defence should anyone try to accuse it of failing its responsibility to provide safe havens for people affected or threatened by climate change-linked disasters.
It defeats the purpose of the early warning if there is no safe space for evacuations however timely the early warning might be. Government should, in addition, prepare communities by running evacuation drills bearing in mind that anticipatory action before a hazard strikes, is critical to minimise loss and damage.
Some people are obstinate and will refuse to relocate even when danger is so glaringly imminent; but beware that people will not relocate simply because they do not have or know where to go.
Traditional and indigenous forms of early warning will be integrated in early warning systems to make early warning systems more acceptable and effective but all this might be futile if no safe places are gazetted to handle evacuation.
When operationalisation of a good law is botched, everything becomes botched.
The author, Ms Agnes Ndaaba is a Disaster Law Project Manager/In-House Legal Counsel, Uganda Red Cross Society.
