How tragic an understatement that last comment has proved. While I was visiting Hanoi, and then on to Manila, I was aware that colleagues in both Embassies were keeping a wary eye on the weather forecasts, including the possible effects on my own tight travel programme. There was a mild tropical depression over the region which at that stage, in early September, didn't develop. Barely three weeks later we have all watched in horror the battering that first Manila and the surrounding area, and then Vietnam, took from full-scale typhoons. It's been sad to hear from colleagues of the devastation faced by individuals and familes, including in some cases those I met during my visit - such as the Christian Aid representative in Manila. Daphne Villanueva has kindly agreed to me adding this link to personalise such a widescale event.
It may sound cheap but it really does drive home the human impact when you meet someone who then suffers in such a way. We need to be careful not to confuse short-term weather patterns with longer-term climate change - let alone the other major environmental disasters also seen across Asia over the past week. But equally, it's important to acknowledge the power that the weather has to affect life and livelihoods around the world - and following from that, why unchecked climate change is so dangerous. There is some scientific base for saying that the intensity of storms is increasing with warmer sea temperatures, though not necessarily their frequency - though that's pretty academic if you're unlucky enough to be caught in the path of a hurricane in the Caribbean or an Asian typhoon. I hope it doesn't take a similarly catastrophic weather event in the UK or Europe to drive home the reality of the threat to us all from changing weather patterns which are already being affected by man-made global warming.
Our Ambassador in Thailand shares his experiences of Typhoon Ketsana and discusses the impacts of climate change on Thailand.
All of this gives added urgency to our objective of protecting poorer and more vulnerable communities around the world from climate change, as part of the global deal needed at Copenhagen. More on that, and my role in it, in my next update.
Posted at 10:56 09 October 2009 by Robin Gwynn | Comments[0]
- Share this with:
-
-
-
-
-