Climate Change and Disasters with Prof. Ilan Kelman

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Ilan Kelman is a Professor of Disasters and Health at the Institute for Risk & Disaster Reduction at University College London (UCL) in the United Kingdom.

He is also the author of the book ‘Disaster by Choice: How our actions turn natural hazards into catastrophes’ which considers the social, political, and economic factors involved in our decision-making around natural hazards.

In your book, Disaster by Choice, you state a ‘disaster is a process manufactured and implemented by people and their choices,’ could you explain a little bit more about that statement?

We often conflate or mix up what happens in the environment with the consequences on humanity. Of course, earthquakes, cyclones, floods, landslides, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions and storms happen.

Yet we see so many examples throughout history and around the world where a very similar environmental event or phenomenon such as an earthquake or flood happened and led to significant damage, and many instances where it happened and didn’t lead to any major problems!

This is showing that the disaster is not the earthquake, landslide, flood, or tsunami. The disaster is people being harmed by it. Why does that happen?

It really comes down to power, opportunities and resources. Some people can get warning information, have the ability to evacuate and are not concerned about being away from home and work for a few days. Other simply cannot – they get fired if they do not turn up to work. They do not have the resources to leave. They are trying to protect their livelihoods and that means that they may be severely impacted by the impacts of a flood for example.

When it comes to building codes and planning regulations, who among us really has the power to change those over the long-term? We also look to other aspects of governance, whether it’s the local government or national government, in order to ensure our buildings do not collapse in an earthquake or are not severely damaged in a tornado or a flood.

These are choices. These are decisions by those who can make the choices and decisions. If we want to reduce the number of people dying in a tornado, then we simply have to have the building codes, planning regulations, and warning systems ready and avoid people being marginalized and protect their well-being while evacuating or staying in shelters. Those are all societal decisions!

The disaster is not what the environment is doing. The disaster is societal decisions to make the environment cause harm to us.

The disaster is not what the environment is doing. The disaster is societal decisions to make the environment cause harm to us.

You also state that ‘neither climate nor climate change, by definition, can be or can cause a disaster,’ again, could you explain that a little further?

Climate, by definition, is weather statistics over the long term. Typically, around 30 years, although people are making that definition much shorter term, maybe 15 or 20 years.

But climate is the average weather. Similarly, by definition, climate change is a change in the climate (which has logic to it). What it’s saying really is that climate change, both natural and human caused, is changes in weather statistics.

Weather is what the environment does, and weather does not cause disasters. So, by definition, climate change does not cause disasters. There are, though, exceptions because nothing is straightforward.

There are nuances and subtleties and provisos. It’s these exceptions which are hurting us now and they are terrifying. The big one is heat and humidity.

Human-caused climate change is indisputable. We are changing the weather statistics rapidly and substantively, one of which is pushing us into heat-humidity regimes that we have not experienced before. It is extremely hard to adapt to those due to the energy requirement and people have to work outdoors to get us materials or food.

Agricultural workers and construction workers do not have the option to have indoor cooling and many people, to make our textiles, to make our clothes, work in situations where they do not have any cooling and they are crammed in very hot buildings.

Human-caused climate change is pushing heat and humidity into regimes that we have not experienced that affect people who are fundamental to our day-to-day life and these heat-humidity regimes are not survivable.

So, when it is a new environmental parameter, when it is a new aspect of the environment, such as heat-humidity, yes, we have direct attribution from humans changing the climate according to the weather statistics, leading to heat and humidity that kills people.

This is one example happening now with high fatalities and many other disruptions which is a climate change-caused disaster. But the exceptions to the rule, the rule being climate change does not cause disasters, are terrifying regarding their impacts and the disruption and problems they are going to cause for humanity.

It has been suggested that money and fiscal policies will actually change the way we look at climate change. But in essence, would US $100 billion every year really tackle climate change?

Since 2009, countries started asking this question at climate change discussions and conferences if it would be possible and appropriate for some countries to give US $100 billion a year to other countries in order to tackle climate change.

But would it really have a significant impact, considering that since 2009-2022, governments have subsidized fossil fuel companies directly at over US $400 billion a year on average?

It’s a reworking of how and what our governments fund and recognizing that governments are perfectly committed to providing hundreds of billions of dollars a year. But what we need to do is divert that into helping people.

Prof. Ilan Kelman spoke with Russell Isaac, Regional Expert, Communications and Knowledge Management at ADPC.