What impact does the climate catastrophe have on humanitarian aid? What can and must humanitarian actors prepare for and how must they adapt in order to counter the consequences of the climate catastrophe?

When we think about the future of humanitarian aid, we must include the climate catastrophe. The climate catastrophe is not a crisis or a change. It is a catastrophe that overlays, exacerbates and interlinks all other issues. In recent years, natural disasters such as droughts, floods and other extreme weather events have increased massively. The prolonged drought in spring this year and the subsequent long rainy season (sometimes accompanied by strong gusts of wind) are also very unusual for our latitudes and can therefore be described as extreme weather conditions. For us, this meant a bad summer. For other people, this development means the destruction of their livelihoods and even displacement from their homes.

The figures speak for themselves: over 90% of all disasters in the last twenty years have been climate or weather-related. This means that the climate disaster is no longer a side issue in the field of humanitarian aid. Rather, it is the reason for the constantly growing number of humanitarian missions. Existing conflicts are being exacerbated by the climate catastrophe, geopolitical balances are being shifted and regions that are already fragile today are being further destabilized.

Climate flight as a reality

We have long known that people are not only fleeing from bombs and oppressive systems. Rising temperatures that lead to the desertification of areas, unpredictable rainfall that makes entire regions uninhabitable due to flooding and crop failures that destroy people’s livelihoods also lead to the displacement of people from various regions of the world. The idea that climate displacement is a future scenario is naive and privileged. It has long been a reality that people are fleeing from the climate and this trend is set to escalate dramatically in the coming years.

Water, food, livelihoods

One of the biggest challenges facing humanitarian aid is the shortage of drinking water. Millions of people already have no access to clean drinking water. Rising temperatures are making water resources even scarcer. In Germany, too, we already have to control our water consumption in dry years, so people are being urged to water their plants only in the evening and farmers are facing challenges. In many regions of the world, it will simply no longer be possible to farm on the current scale in the future. (One way to save large amounts of water would be to switch to a plant-based diet). When water is scarce, crops fail and livestock die, people are forced into humanitarian emergencies and dependence on water and food aid increases. At the same time, there is a growing risk that hunger and water will be instrumentalized as political weapons.

What does this mean in concrete terms for humanitarian aid?

Organizations working in the field of humanitarian aid must prepare themselves for the fact that they will be needed more frequently, more quickly and in different places at the same time in the future. The climate catastrophe is acting as a catalyst. This radically questions the general approach of humanitarian aid workers: how do we plan when the unplannable becomes the rule? How do we provide for ourselves and those affected when global supply chains are repeatedly disrupted by extreme weather? How do we maintain structures when the number of parallel emergencies is constantly increasing? How do we prioritize the various humanitarian missions? Who is supported and who falls behind?

Options for action and responsibility

Of course, we as humanitarian actors cannot solve the climate catastrophe, but we can adapt our work and prepare for the climate catastrophe. These three points are key:

1. Prevention and resilience: Humanitarian aid must not only start when disasters have already occurred. Approaches are needed that enable communities to become more resilient. For example, local early warning systems, climate-adapted agriculture and solidarity-based structures could be helpful here.
2. Political action: Humanitarian organizations must actively campaign politically for climate protection. Anyone who takes humanitarian work seriously must exert pressure on governments and corporations to finally take decisive action on climate protection. It is not enough to treat the symptoms while ignoring the causes.
3. Structural changes in humanitarian aid itself: Humanitarian operations cause CO₂, consume resources and reproduce dependencies. Of course, this cannot be completely avoided, but it is always possible to question and change one’s own practices so that all areas of humanitarian aid (from logistics to energy supply) are as climate-neutral as possible.

Climate catastrophe as a crisis amplifier

The climate catastrophe is the greatest challenge for humanitarian aid because it not only creates new disasters, but also exacerbates every other crisis. It makes refugee movements larger, conflicts tougher and emergencies more complex. The climate catastrophe makes humanitarian aid both more necessary and more challenging. As a humanitarian organization, we are faced with the task of reinventing ourselves: How do we become more pragmatic, more political, more solidary? Ultimately, it’s not just about providing aid in the event of a disaster. It’s about the question of how we as a global society deal with the climate catastrophe. If we are serious about humanitarianism, then we can no longer pretend that we can separate humanitarian work from the climate catastrophe.

About the author:

Ronja studied physics and environmental science. After working in the field of climate protection for several years, she found her way into humanitarian aid and CADUS 1.5 years ago. Here she works as Country Manager and is responsible for Ukraine.