Research pick: Climate communication - "The effects of natural disasters on human development in developing and developed countries"

The human suffering caused by climate change continues to grow. It is already affecting food and water security, hampering efforts at poverty reduction, and leading to a tragic loss of life through natural disasters. Research published in the International Journal of Global Warming reiterates the received wisdom that developed nations have greater resilience than developing nations. However, the work also demonstrates that resilience is greater in developing nations with higher levels of literacy among the population, higher per capita income, and more openness to international trade.

Adnan Akram, Faisal Jamil, and Shahzad Alvi of the National University of Sciences and Technology in Islamabad, Pakistan, explain how during the last two decades encroaching climate change has led to thousands of natural disasters with hundreds of thousands of lives lost. The devastating impact has also made worse the lives of those living in places at the extremes where temperatures continue to rise way beyond the historical norms, and where food and water security have always been a problem but are now even more so. The terrible socio-economic conditions in which so many people live make the impact of climate-related shocks even more devastating with each event.

The IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, recognises well how climate change will create many more impoverished people around the world and thwart efforts at sustainable development through the remainder of this century and well into the next. There are so many problems that we must face, but one issue that could be addressed sooner rather than later is to improve communication.

The information available to those in the developing world – the citizens and the policymakers – is limited. Improved dissemination of knowledge surrounding climate change and how we might build resilience in the more vulnerable parts of the world must be a priority. Indeed, without better education around the issues and improved communication through the media, the most impoverished and vulnerable will see their suffering increase and greater environmental damage in the wake of climate change and the natural disasters it brings with it.

Akram, A., Jamil, F. and Alvi, S. (2022) ‘The effects of natural disasters on human development in developing and developed countries’, Int. J. Global Warming, Vol. 27, No. 2, pp.155–172.