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Statement of M. Patrice Paoli
Director of the Support and Crisis Center
French Ministry of Foreign Affairs
DIHAD, 23 March 2016
It is a great honor for me to be here today and I would like to express my
gratitude to the organizers of this conference for having invited me.
One month ago, in Paris, we had our third National Humanitarian Conference.
After the Sendai Conference on Natural Disasters and the Paris Conference on
Climate Change, after the Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week earlier in January, and
few months before the World Humanitarian Summit, it was a great opportunity
to recall how climate change has originated so many humanitarian crises.
In light of the silent tragedies that we are currently witnessing (desertification,
rising sea levels, soil salinization) that contribute to humanitarian, political and
security crisis — in West or Central Africa, for example, where droughts have
fueled conflict — the long-neglected adaptation to climate change is a crucial
point for our humanitarian action.
In September 2015, the Crisis center in the French MFA, together with French
humanitarian NGOs, organized a conference on climate change and its
humanitarian impacts. It was a great opportunity for our partners from
affected countries to recall the urgency of the situation and to illustrate the
environmental, societal and human implications of climate change.
1/ Firstly, implications for food security,
In Africa, climate change has taken the form of a change in the number of
seasons and an increase of weather events, now characterized by alternating
periods of drought and floods. Only a few years ago, Sahel countries had three
seasons (rainy, dry and cold); now there are just two (the cold season has
disappeared) and the rainy season is shorter (three months instead of six).
Agriculture has become virtually impracticable, which has caused recurring
food crises across the Sahel region. Ongoing international aid is therefore
needed, but is currently insufficient given rising needs.
2/ Secondly, implications in terms of massive population displacements,
The lack of arable land and access to food causes massive migrations to
overcrowded cities where living conditions are very difficult. In Bangladesh, the
situation described by Runa Khan is an example of this situation. Beyond this
case, many insular countries, notably in the Indian and Pacific oceans, are
threatened by this natural phenomenon.
The impacts are the same for South America where the increasing frequency of
natural disasters is disrupting the local economic system and spurring in the
same way massive migration of populations. In Bolivia, 85% of the national diet
has been affected by the impacts of climate change. Weather events threaten
the country’s food security. This year, the El Niño weather event is of very high
intensity. We understand that it will affect a large proportion of people around
the world from Bolivia to Southern and Eastern Africa.
This process brings cities to their saturation point, aggravates poverty and
creates considerable social tension. The scope of these new migrations is
unprecedented: each year for the last seven years, 22.5 million people on
average have been forced to leave their region of origin due to the climate or
extreme weather events. It is forecast that, by 2020, more than 60 million
people could migrate from sub-Saharan Africa to North Africa and Europe.
Consequently, there is a real risk that the current migration crisis will become
recurrent and create significant social upheavals which will be very difficult to
manage. These migrations cause conflicts to proliferate. The clashes resulting
from inadequate access to water are reflected in community and political
conflicts in numerous countries and these conflicts are likely to intensify and
spread to neighboring countries. There are many examples: Boko Haram has
taken advantage of the clashes that erupted between farmers and herders near
Lake Chad in the northern part of Nigeria; in Syria, where the worst drought in
its history occurred between 2006 and 2011 and plunged more than one
million small farmers into food insecurity, ISIS has increased its influence by
confiscating water resources.
3/ thirdly, implications on the way of life
In Chad, the effects of climate change on agriculture are impacting the
traditional family structure. The migration to cities by fathers who can no
longer till the soil is currently viewed in African cultures as a loss of dignity,
which indirectly contributes to the rising ideological radicalization of
populations.
Climate change is now bringing to the forefront so many issues to deal with,
either political, social or humanitarian – as well as demographic (in 2050, the
global population will reach 9.7 billion people, with very high birth rate in the
most vulnerable regions). The principal objective of both the development and
the humanitarian partners should be not only to strengthen the current
population’s resilience to climate change but also to plan for and be able to
anticipate the needs of 2.5 billion people not yet born, against the backdrop of
diminishing global natural resources.
Yes, these resources will be diminishing not only in relative terms but in
absolute term too. Currently 80% of the world’s population is already suffering
from water insecurity, and for each degree of global warming, 7% of the
world’s population will lose at least 20% of its renewable water resources. The
gap between water demand and available resources could therefore reach 40%
in 2030.
Concerning agriculture, it is estimated that available farmland will decrease by
20% by 2050, with a direct effect of reducing food production by 12%. This land
degradation, combined with the growing climate shock, is prompting the most
vulnerable populations to adopt new strategies (reducing food consumption,
expenditures and medical care; pulling children out of school).
The Paris agreement tackled all these issues. It tried to organize the
mobilization of all partners around a common language: Governments and
State institutions, NGOs, communities, the private sector and local authorities.
It offers an opportunity to adopt rules of conduct to make it impossible to
renege on commitments made, in order to avoid the pitfalls of the Kyoto
Protocol, as certain countries are still not in compliance with the agreements.
Furthermore, the Paris agreement creates transparency and builds trust. A key
factor is the establishment of a common verification system, mainly to attest to
the efforts undertaken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In the absence of
legal proceedings, we have to foster the transparency of the measures taken,
the publication of results, and openness to vigilance by civil society so it can
monitor government actions.
Lastly, funding and technological improvements are another piece of the
puzzle. They will enable developing countries to participate in a resilient and
low-carbon economy. France already commits itself to increase its funding to
climate resilience projects from 3 to 5 billions euros in 2020.
The Paris agreement has confirmed the commitment of $100 billion per year by
2020 to combat global warming.
We are moving in the right direction, as all countries have indicated a high level
of commitment. We appreciate for instance that the United Arab Emirates
commit to boost the use of clean energy from 0,2 % now to 24 % in 2021,
which represents a tremendous effort.
On 22nd of April in New York, the United Nations Secretary General will convey
the Heads of States for a signing ceremony and it will be an opportunity for all
members of the UN to show their commitment to the Paris agreement. France,
assuming the Presidency of the COP, will ratify the agreement as fast as
possible. Later on, more than 20 decisions will have to be adopted by the
parties and will detail the implementation modalities of the agreement. A
working group to be launched next may in Bonn will work them out.
All national contributions will be monitored and renewed every five years. In
the meantime, humanitarian and development policy must cater for people in
need of strengthening their adaptation capacities.
Humanitarian aid must be viewed in the broader context of adaptation and
rehabilitation, which means rethinking development and strengthening
people’s resilience. From that perspective, within the Paris agreement,
significant funds will have to be allocated to adaptation measures that will have
to be realistic and achievable.
Innovation will be central to tackle the Paris agreement challenges. Technical
solutions will be based mainly on modern technology such as the use of
satellite images to indicate water-stressed areas, drought progression. The
development of El Niño-type events requires generalizing early warning
systems. France is currently supporting the CREWS initiative in order to
strengthen them all over the planet. The use of drones by humanitarian actors
is also considered, for example to track desert locusts or assess emergency
needs. The use of mobile phones networks can also be considered in order to
disseminate and gather information, on weather forecasting for instance,
which is made available to local agricultural authorities and can influence and
improve crop planning.
We should also highlight the development of financial innovations – financial
transfers, cash allowances, insurance systems.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Facing all these climate constraints, the humanitarian community needs to get
better organized, financially stronger and more efficient. The World
humanitarian Summit will work out some commitments on these issues. The
French humanitarian partners have made proposals for the summit.
They support the emergence of “a diversified humanitarian ecosystem,
centered on populations and structured by humanitarian principles”.
In this ecosystem, everything should be done to prevent crises and to end
conflicts, notably with greater political commitments from governments to face
situations of fragility and crisis. Humanitarian action cannot be a substitute for
a lack of political action. It is important to bear in mind that it is the
responsibility of States to apply the international Humanitarian Law and that
standards need to be respected (as, for example, by supporting the proposal to
abandon Security Council vetoes if there is a resolution that aims to end mass
crimes; reinforcing IHL monitoring systems; or respecting humanitarian
principles in decisions about providing populations with aid). Measures to
promote the protection of humanitarian actors and to end impunity should be
one of our main goals.
We need to avoid the dichotomy between development and emergency
humanitarian actions. All actors have to contribute, taking into account the
specificities and the capacities of each of them. This implies that humanitarian
actions have to better integrate medium and long terms agenda in order to
guarantee the sustainability of the development actions which will be carried
out.
The ecosystem needs to adapt to local contexts. This is not possible with a “one
size fits all” approach. It is important to be able to be flexible, to support
innovation and to adapt, and also to accept that risks sometimes need to be
taken.
The growing role of local stakeholders needs to be supported, without being
dogmatic, and taking local contexts into account as well as the political issues
at stake in crisis situations. The “localization” of aid is more efficient
economically. It can bring continuity, knowledge of what is needed on the
ground and risk prevention. The system should therefore allow access to
structural funding for local NGOs that meet the criteria to enter into a
partnership.
It is also crucial to mobilize new resources and to ensure the effectiveness of
the use of available resources to respond to the growing number of crises. This
could involve new sources of funding (the involvement of private stakeholders
for example), using innovative funding (as taxes on financial transactions),
adapting funding to the complexity of crises and situations (by developing
multi-country, multi-sector, multi-phase and multi-stakeholder approaches),
lightening and harmonizing donors’ administrative procedures or facilitating
access to funding for local NGOs by helping them to develop their
organizational capacities.
In this ecosystem, all stakeholders should be taken into account, each with
their own added value (local and international NGOs, States, regional
authorities, diasporas, the private sector, new private donors such as
foundations, etc.). The humanitarian system needs to be more inclusive.
Facing these issues, it is important to review the effectiveness of the
coordination mechanisms. Networks and local consultation based processes
have shown that they allow the development of a good quality dialogue and
help to identify complementary between actors.
These are the main messages to be brought by the French partners at the
Istanbul Summit. Most of them are linked to the dynamic of the COP 21 and the
Paris agreement. Indeed, we have to act in the framework of a double strategy:
on the medium to long term, working out solutions through our common
commitments on reducing climate change; on the short term, bringing relief to
the current vulnerable people affected by the natural crisis and helping them to
be more resilient and adapt their way of life in accordance to the medium to
long term forecast.
I am confident that our world can sustain this double strategy for the benefit
of our unique and common humanity.
I thank you very much for your attention.