As I swerve to avoid yet another crater that looks as though it leads to the earth’s centre I’m reminded that this video game style driving experience is brought to me courtesy of Hurricane Ida. It’s been more than a month since the storm tore through the Caribbean dumping several millimetres of excess water in Jamaica over 24 hours. The potholes that are now adding stress and anxiety to my journey through the capital, threatening the lives of unsuspecting motorists, are a sign that it’s ‘that time of year’ we are in the midst of hurricane season.
Climate change has gifted the region a longer, wetter, more uncertain yearly event from the beginning of June to the end of November. Communities have developed expertise in disaster resilience swiftly communicating around the threat of oncoming storms. While I’m grateful that we got off lightly with minimal damage across the island I can’t stop thinking about the families sleeping in their basement apartments in America’s largest economy who suffered death by drowning with no warning.
I’m reminded that this video game style driving experience is brought to me courtesy of Hurricane Ida.
I can’t stop thinking about the families sleeping in their basement apartments in America’s largest economy who suffered death by drowning with no warning.
My friend and business partner is based in Brooklyn, a stone’s throw from Wall Street. She slept soundly as Ida tore through the city. It was the morning after, when she went into the kitchen to make coffee that the terrifying reality of our climate-vulnerable world confronted her. She, like many of the city’s eight million residents, was caught completely unaware by the intense storm which killed at least 14 New Yorkers. This has to be an underestimate since the homeless and undocumented workers that may have also drowned as apartments, streets and the subway were submerged have no one to advocate for them. It is probably naive to expect those who failed to issue warnings to the population as a whole to take responsibility for the nameless and faceless. A month later, my friend is still waiting for her contractor to complete repairs to her roof and kitchen. His team is stretched thin, managing multiple similar jobs across the city. Here people have the means and motivation to clean up and move on with their lives yet it has been a slow and frustrating process. What happens in places where there are no funds and competing priorities? Like managing a pandemic, averting economic collapse or governing after a presidential assassination perhaps?
Hurricane Ida made landfall near Port Fourchon, Louisiana as a Category 4 storm with maximum sustained winds of 150 mph on August 29. It caused tornadoes in at least six states, stretching from the Mississippi coast to Cape Cod in Massachusetts. Ida triggered one of the worst urban flood disasters in U.S. history in the Northeast. The storm and its aftermath caused at least 60 deaths, the majority due to flooding in New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Connecticut. Hurricane Ida’s damage tally could top $95 billion, making it the seventh costliest hurricane to hit the U.S. since 2000.
It was the morning after, when she went into the kitchen to make coffee that the terrifying reality of our climate-vulnerable world confronted her.
Youth climate activist Vanessa Nakate collapsed in tears after her emotional speech at a three-day Youth4Climate summit in Italy’s financial capital at the end of September. Four hundred climate activists from 180 countries were invited to make recommendations ahead of a United Nations climate summit set to take place later in the year.
Nakate, a 24-year-old activist from Uganda, said pledges of US$117 billion a year to help countries vulnerable to the impact of climate change have not materialized, “Funds were promised by 2020, and we are still waiting,” she said. “No more empty conferences. It’s time to show us the money. It’s time, it’s time, it’s time.”
Nakate underlined how climate change is affecting Africa, “which is ironic given that Africa is the lowest emitter of CO2 emissions of any continent except Antarctica.” A week before the speech she watched police recover a body that had been washed away by violent storms in the Ugandan capital of Kampala. Others searched for more victims. Her mother told her that one man dragged off by the water had been trying to protect the goods he was selling.
The warnings have been straight forward enough; burning fossil fuels adds greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, warms the planet and causes wild weather.
A third of U.S. residents have been hit by drought, floods, wildfires, heatwaves or hurricanes in the last three months. Many of those events set new records and led to billions of dollars in damages.
This feels like an opportunity to move the needle on climate awareness. Maybe it’s because I’m an eternal optimist, I truly believe people are inherently compassionate. Either way, when mainstream US media is leading with headlines about one in three Americans being affected by climate related disasters it feels like time to pay more than lip service to the need for collective responsibility. The warnings have been straight forward enough; burning fossil fuels adds greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, warms the planet and causes wild weather. last few decades. What’s different now is that it’s almost impossible to look away, the loss and damage is possible everywhere. Wildfires in Greece, floods in Germany and Belgium. A third of U.S. residents have been hit by drought, floods, wildfires, heatwaves or hurricanes in the last three months. Many of those events set new records and led to billions of dollars in damages.
One percent of the planet is a barely habitable hot zone. By 2070, this figure could reach 19% forcing millions of people to leave their homes around the world. In 2019, Hurricane Dorian made 465,000 people homeless in seven countries across the Caribbean, in Brazil, floods and landslides forced 295,000 residents out of their homes. In Central America, people in Guatemala migrate after droughts and floods that affect the production of their crops generating food shortages and poverty. This process is gradual and can also be understood as an economic migration; that is, in search of job opportunities and livelihoods. It is estimated that by 2050, the number of people moving from Central America to the United States could reach 30 million, mainly due to food insecurity caused by the climate crisis.
Surely taking responsibility for the world’s unnatural state means industrialized nations that have enjoyed the spoils of a robust market economy should be underwriting the cost of the transition to clean energy.
The interesting thing is, there’s an increasing number of well educated nation builders in these countries dedicating their lives to making their homelands liveable.
Surely taking responsibility for the world’s unnatural state means industrialized nations that have enjoyed the spoils of a robust market economy should be underwriting the cost of the transition to clean energy. The problem is, this kind of global cooperation is elusive. The unequal distribution of vaccines offers undeniable evidence of this. Covid-19 has killed economies that many of us on the frontlines of climate change have worked hard to build following years of crippling IMF debt. Despite the call to action that no one is safe until we’re all safe, two percent of the population in low income countries has received at least one vaccine dose. That’s compared to 30 percent in lower-middle-income countries, 54 percent in upper-middle-income countries, and nearly two-thirds or 65 percent in high-income countries. Between climate change and Covid-19 the message appears to be; migrate or die as competing crises make life untenable. The interesting thing is, there’s an increasing number of well educated nation builders in these countries dedicating their lives to making their homelands liveable.
Kelly Silvera is CEO of Fawma, an AI firm working to connect entrepreneurs with markets and networks. She writes on issues of reparative justice and tech. Kelly advocates for opportunities through entrepreneurship.
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Monthly Newsletter | October 2021 | VOL. 4
- Featured image: New York city skyline