When a natural disaster strikes, people are sometimes left with no choice but to leave the areas affected. Yet, for some, even this option might not exist. Cyclone survivors in Myanmar shelter in the ruins of their destroyed home. Credit: UNHCR/Taw Naw Htoo

By Ido Liven
LONDON, Nov 10 2014 (IPS)

Climate change is projected by many scientists to bring with it a range of calamities – from widespread floods, to prolonged heatwaves and slowly but relentlessly rising seas – taking the heaviest toll on those already most vulnerable.

When a natural disaster strikes, people are sometimes left with no choice but to leave the areas affected. Yet, for some, even this option might not exist.

While many could be uprooted in search of a safer place to live, either temporarily or permanently, some may become “climate hostages”, unable to escape.

“People around the world are more or less mobile, depending on a range of factors,” argues Prof Richard Black from the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, “but they can become trapped in circumstances where they want or need [to move] but cannot.”When a natural disaster strikes, people are sometimes left with no choice but to leave the areas affected. Yet, for some, even this option might not exist … they may become “climate hostages”, unable to escape

According to Black, “it is most likely to be because they cannot afford it, or because there is no [social] network for them to follow or job for them to do … or because there is some kind of policy barrier to movement such as a requirement for a visa that is unobtainable, in some countries even the requirement for an exit visa that is unobtainable.”

For the most vulnerable, climate change could mean double jeopardy – first, from worsening environmental conditions threatening their livelihood, and second, from the diminished financial, social and even physical assets required for moving away provoked by this situation.

A project on migration and global environmental change led by Black was one of the first to draw attention to the notion of “trapped populations”.

In its report, published in 2011 by the Foresight think tank at the U.K. Government Office for Science, the authors warned that “in the decades ahead, millions of people will be unable to move away from locations in which they are extremely vulnerable to environmental change.”

An example the Foresight report mentions is that of inhabitants of small island states living in flood-prone areas or near exposed coasts. People in these areas might not have the means to address these hazards and also lack the resources to migrate out of the islands.

The report warned that such situations could escalate to risky displacement and humanitarian emergencies.

In fact, past cases offer some evidence of groups of people who have become immobile as a result of either extreme weather events or even slow onset crises.

One such example, says Black, is the drought in the 1980s in Africa’s Sahel region, when there was a decrease in the numbers of adult men who chose to migrate – the same people who would otherwise leave the area.

“Under drought conditions they were less able to do so because that involves drawing on your assets – in the Sahel often assets would be livestock – and the drought kills livestock, which means you can’t convert livestock into cash, and then you can’t pay the smuggler or afford the cost of the journey that would take you out of that area.”

Nevertheless, Black argues that in many cases it would be especially difficult to distinguish people who remain because they can and wish to, from those who are really unable to leave. In addition, environmental change could also drive people to migrate towards areas where they are even more at risk than those they have left.

In the Mekong delta in southern Vietnam, researchers foresee climate change contributing to floods, loss of land and increased soil salinity. Facing these hazards, local residents in an already impoverished region could find themselves unable to cope, and also unable to move away.

“It would generally be income and assets that will determine whether people can stay where they are or need to relocate,” says Dr Christopher Smith from the University of Sussex, who is currently conducting a European Community-funded project assessing the risk of trapped populations in the Mekong delta.

“Within the short term, it would mostly be temporary movement, but in the future … there could be more permanent migration.”

According to Smith, “the Mekong, being such a long river that flows through so many different countries, will make [this case] quite unique in terms of changes to the water budget in the delta and, of course, factors like cultures and populations in the delta will play a part.”

Conclusions from the study are likely to be relevant to other cases around the world, and specifically to other low lying mega-deltas with similar characteristics, Smith adds.

In Guatemala, researchers found that relatively isolated mountain communities could also be facing the risk of becoming stranded by climate change.

According to a study published earlier this year, irregular rainfall could be posing a serious threat for the food security and sources of income of communities in the municipality of Cabricán who rely on subsistence rain-fed agriculture.

Yet, the risks associated with climate change are not confined to developing countries. Hurricane Katrina, which hit the south-east of the United States in 2005, offered a vivid example when the New Orleans’ Superdome housed more than 20,000 people over several days.

“That was to do with the fact that an evacuation plan had been designed with the idea that everybody would leave by car, but essentially there were sections of the population that didn’t have a car and were not going to leave by car, and also some people who didn’t believe the messages around evacuation,” says Black.

“And those people who were trapped in the eye of the storm were then more likely to be displaced later – so they were more likely to end up in one of the trailer parks, the temporary accommodation put on by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.”

Scientists are wary of linking Hurricane Katrina, or any single extreme weather event, to climate change. Yet, studies show that a warmer world might not necessarily mean more hurricanes, but such storms could be fiercer than those that these areas are used to.

Beyond science, says Black, international organisations are aware of the issue. “I’ve had quite extensive discussions with UNHCR [the U.N. refugee agency], the International Organization for Migration, the European Commission and a number of other bodies on these matters. There is a degree of interest in this idea that people can be trapped.”

A paper on Populations ‘trapped’ at times of crisis written by Black with Michael Collyer of the University of Sussex and published in February, notes that while it might still be early to suggest specific policy measures to address this predicament, there are several steps decision makers can take, and not only on the national level.

“As long as we have limited information on trapped populations,” say the authors, “the policy goal should be to avoid situations in which people are unable to move when they want to, not to promote policy that encourages them to move when they may not want to, and up-to-date information allowing them to make an informed choice.”

Intergovernmental fora – and among them the loss and damage stream in international climate negotiations – are yet to address specifically the challenge of trapped populations, but Europe might already be showing the way.

A European Commission working paper on climate change, environmental degradation and migration that accompanies the European Union’s strategy on adaptation to climate change adopted in April 2013 mentions the risk of trapped populations, albeit implicitly only outside the region, and recommends steps to address the issue.

Reviewing existing research on the links between climate change, environmental degradation and migration, the authors note that relocation, while questionably effective, “may nevertheless become a necessity in certain scenarios” such as the case of trapped communities.

“The EU should therefore consider supporting countries severely exposed to environmental stressors to assess the path of degradation and design specific preventive internal, or where necessary, international relocation measures when adaptation strategies can no longer be implemented,” states the working paper.

Ultimately, the situation where individuals, families, and indeed entire communities, find themselves unable to move out of harm’s way is not unique to the effects of climate change – it can be other natural hazards such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions or human-induced crises like armed conflict.

The international community’s response to people moving in the face of such crises is most often based on giving them a status, such as “internally displaced persons”, “asylum seekers” or “refugees”.

But this would not be the appropriate response when people remain, argues Black.

For them, “the issue is not a lack of legal status – it’s a lack of options … Public policy needs to be geared around providing people with options, in my view, both ahead of disasters and in the immediate aftermath of disasters.”

(Edited by Phil Harris)

In the weeks since the South Korean ferry Sewol sank—taking with it the lives of over 300 passengers, the vast majority of them high school students — the country continues to be wracked by a palpable mix of grief, guilt, and outrage.

The aftermath of the sinking has exposed a uniquely Korean sense of collective guilt and personalisation of disaster. In a comment that typified the national mood over the past weeks, one man told the Los Angeles Times, “I feel embarrassed as a Korean. We failed our children.”

Across all sectors of the country, and in ways difficult for international audiences to comprehend, people feel personally responsible for creating a society in which such a tragedy would be allowed to occur.

This combination of culpability and helplessness has turned to anger, and not just at the unforgivable actions of the captain and crew, who abandoned ship while leaving hundreds of students trapped in their cabins. In what could prove to be a major problem for President Park Geun-hye, it is the South Korean government that is now bearing the brunt of the public’s wrath.

“A Government Mafia”

The Park administration has come under heavy criticism from relatives of victims, who have protested in front of the Blue House and charged that the government did not act quickly or decisively enough in the immediate aftermath of the sinking.

These criticisms have been repeated throughout the web and in Korean media outlets, with even the reliably conservative Joongang Daily claiming that the disaster “underscored that [the government] lacked ability in times of crisis.”

A lack of cooperation among the agencies in charge of emergency response, combined with shifting and often contradictory messages about the progress of the rescue, has painted a picture of institutional incompetence and damaged the public’s trust in its leaders. The resignation of Prime Minister Chung Hong-won over the government’s response to the accident has served to validate much of this criticism.

The catastrophe has also shined a light on the cosy relationship between industry and governmental regulators. The Sewol had been the subject of a number of safety concerns, including a finding earlier this year by the Korea Register of Shipping (KRS) that the ship had become top-heavy and less stable after additional passenger cabins were constructed on the upper decks.

Adding to this, the owner of the ferry, Chonghaejin Marine, had been accused by a former employee of overloading ships, covering up accidents, and mistreating its workforce. Despite these troubles, the Korean Shipping Association (KSA), a trade group responsible for certifying cargo safety, gave the ship a green light to carry out its ill-fated voyage.

Executive positions in both the KRS and KSA are filled by retired government officials, who are charged with lobbying their former colleagues on behalf of their new employers.

This system is prevalent throughout Korean industry, and has been cited by the president herself as a factor in fostering the lax safety standards that led to the disaster. In her public apology following the sinking, Park referred to this arrangement as a “government mafia” and called for an elimination of the practice.

Park’s Katrina?

In many ways, the Sewol tragedy mirrors one of the more famous examples of institutional breakdown: the U.S. government’s calamitous response to Hurricane Katrina.

In that case, failure to coordinate the relief effort between state and federal agencies compounded the initial impact of the hurricane, leaving New Orleans residents stranded without food, water, or shelter for several days after the storm hit.

As with the Sewol, accusations of political cronyism abounded in the aftermath of the incident, when it was revealed that three top officials of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, including director Michael Brown, were Republican political operatives with no experience in disaster relief management.

Americans viewed the ghastly scenes of post-Katrina New Orleans on nightly television, and wondered how their government could have so completely and utterly failed at protecting its own citizens.

As in South Korea during the aftermath of the Sewol disaster, where the finger of blame is being squarely pointed at the entire system rather than one political party, Americans initially assigned blame to both state and federal authorities.

While Park’s public support has slipped as a result of the sinking, she still enjoys a relatively robust 57 percent approval rating. Although Park, like then President George W. Bush in the early weeks following Hurricane Katrina, has largely been able to evade personal responsibility, she would be wise to take heed of his subsequent experience.

Reflecting in 2008 on the impact of the disaster, Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew Research Center, noted that Hurricane Katrina “devastated President Bush.”

Through the mismanagement of the disaster, “his image as an incompetent president began to be reinforced and intensified.”

Bush’s approval ratings peaked at 45 percent in the weeks following Hurricane Katrina. But as the public perception of him began to change, he went from being seen as strong and decisive to looking bungling and inept, weighed down by Katrina as well as increasing public disillusionment with the Iraq War. His ratings plummeted, contributing to a landslide defeat of the Republican Party in the 2006 congressional elections.

Latent Outrage

Unlike Bush, Park may benefit from the shambolic state of the major opposition party, the New Politics Alliance for Democracy (NPAD). Founded in March through a merger of the establishment Democratic Party (DP) and the minor New Politics Party led by former independent presidential candidate Ahn Cheol-soo, the new coalition has steadily lost ground to Park’s centre-right Saenuri Party.

By throwing in his lot with the DP, Ahn has sacrificed his most valuable political currency: his image as an outsider who can rise above traditional politics. His standing was further damaged after a dispute with his new partners led him to reverse a key campaign pledge regarding the nominating process for local candidates.

Ahn had been one of the few politicians in the country capable of providing a credible alternative to Park, and his marginalisation has paved the way for Saenuri to consolidate its hold on power in the Jun. 4 legislative elections.

Gallup polling taken during the week of the sinking showed voter support for Saenuri at 59 percent, compared to the opposition’s paltry 25 percent. The ensuing public anger at the government has so far failed to translate into gains for the NPAD.

While it is unlikely that the NPAD will provide much trouble for Park in next month’s elections, the reverberations of the Sewol tragedy will echo throughout Korean politics for years to come.

Koreans are not shy about taking to the streets to vent their anger, but the degree of shock and grief in the country right now is unprecedented in recent history, and has left people unsure of how to proceed.

Regardless of the outcome of the elections, the psychological impacts of the tragedy will continue to linger in the national consciousness. If left to fester, they will remain a latent force that could undermine the president’s ability to govern.

Mitigating the national trauma will require leadership that balances a sense of empathy with an assumption of personal responsibility, and swift actions to overhaul a system in drastic need of reform.

For Park, who is by turns viewed as uncommunicative, callous, and ineffective, the Sewol sinking may prove to be, like Bush’s Katrina, the moment when a presidency began to crumble.

Geoffrey Fattig is a graduate student at UC San Diego’s School of International Relations and Pacific Studies. He lives outside Seoul and writes about Korea at www.jeollamite.com. This article originally appeared in Foreign Policy In Focus.

In New Orleans, which was struck by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, residents are planning strategies to prepare for the next natural disaster. Above, a house damaged by Hurricane Katrina. Credit: Steve Wilson/ CC by 2.0

By Matthew Charles Cardinale
ATLANTA, Georgia, Dec 14 2012 (IPS)

Many residents are still rebuilding their lives seven years after Hurricane Katrina devastated the city of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast region of the United States. Those who are able are looking ahead and organising so that they will be better prepared for future natural disasters.

Although at a recent conference in Doha, Qatar, the international community failed to reach meaningful agreement on preventing more global warming, disaster preparedness will become an increasingly important topic for communities, especially those near water, around the world.

A new book, “Not Meant to Live Like This: Weathering the Storm of Our Lives in New Orleans”, by the members of the All Together in Dignity (ATD) Fourth World Movement living in New Orleans, addresses the topic of community organising for disaster preparedness.

A symposium at the Carter Center in Atlanta on Dec. 13 addressed the same issues. Both the book and the symposium received support from the Southern Partners Fund, a philanthropic group that promotes social change in the American South and which launched a Justice Fund for Disaster Relief and Renewal shortly after Katrina.

New Orleans still recovering

Martin Luther King III, the son of Martin Luther King Jr., emphasised in an interview with IPS that some parts of New Orleans have not yet recovered from Hurricane Katrina.

In the Ninth Ward, he said, “homes were torn town and not rebuilt”, adding, “I am not saying it was intentional…but somebody must have made the decision.”

Even the parts of New Orleans that have been rebuilt have changed dramatically. Public housing communities that served low-income residents were torn down. Public schools have been privatised. Even the homes and businesses that have been rebuilt simply do not look quite the same.

“That happens in every community,” Marilyn Self, manager of the Disaster Readiness programme at the American Red Cross of Greater Atlanta, said during a panel at the symposium. “It’s never the same again. Even if every home is rebuilt and everyone comes back – which they don’t – it’s not the same church spire. The high school has a different look. It’s not the one you have a treasured memory in.”

Sharing responsibilities

“You have a personal responsibility to prepare for yourself in an emergency,” Winston Minor, chair of the Public Safety Committee for the Concerned Black Clergy of Atlanta, said during the panel, advising people to always have at least three days of food, water and medical supplies on hand in case disaster strikes.

“FEMA [the Federal Emergency Management Agency] expects you to be able to make it for three days,” Minor said.

But, Minor pointed out, “the community has a responsibility to make sure the community can respond,” and so “everyone in the system needs to be educated”. He said churches should be a vital component of that effort.

The Red Cross has been chartered by Congress since 1881 to help respond to disasters across the United States. Its ability to provide help, however, depends in part on partnerships it establishes at the local level, Self remarked.

One of the biggest problems faced by the Red Cross during and immediately after disasters is shelter. “We need spaces to hold several thousand people. We’ve been bickering with the mega-churches, but there is no agreement in place yet. It’s always, ‘We’ll get back to you.  Let’s talk to our lawyer,'” Self said.

Transportation is also an issue. Local workers who drive public buses or school buses are often relied upon to help transport people out of harm’s way when a storm is coming.

“That has to be communicated down to the person who drives the bus. Public employees need to know there’s a role for them in the disaster plan,” Self said.

Local organisations should have partnerships in place before disasters occur to determine how to cooperate in responding to them.

Housing problems

One key issue after Hurricane Katrina was the drastic decrease in affordable housing units.

In New Orleans today, “affordable housing is very scarce and the rent is very high,” Marie Victoire, co-author of “Not Meant to Live Like This”, told IPS. These factors make it “difficult for low-income people to come back”.

Public housing communities were demolished and replaced with so-called mixed-income housing. Four developments with nearly 5,000 units were demolished after Katrina. Replacement housing has not yet been built, but fewer than a thousand affordable units are planned, with the rest of the units at or near market rate.

“There was no right of return for former residents. They have a million ways to keep people out,” Jay Arena, assistant professor of sociology at the College of Staten Island, who lived in New Orleans at the time, told IPS. Arena is the author of a book called “Driven from New Orleans: How Nonprofits Betray Public Housing and Promote Privatization”.

“The political and economic elite saw Katrina as a grand opportunity to deepen their neo-liberal privatisation agenda, change the racial and class demographic of the city, and that’s what they did, by closing down thousands of units of badly needed but hardly damaged public housing units, clearly in violation of international law,” Arena said.

Many low-income families paid 200 to 400 dollars per month on run-down housing before Katrina. After those homes were renovated following the hurricane, prices went up to 700 or 800 per month.

Arena believed that other countries should learn many lessons from what has happened in New Orleans. Above all, he argued, the likelihood of future disasters is another reason to greatly expand the public sector. He added that policies must be put in place to promote the right of return, including rent control and the rights of renters to return to their housing.

“They closed most of the public schools, they closed down the public hospital, Charity Hospital – that probably caused more deaths than even Katrina,” Arena concluded.