Climate change promises to be the dominant humanitarian concern of the
twenty-first century, at least indirectly.^16 This is because its probable effects, even
in relatively good-case scenarios, will be substantially to increase the incidences of
all of the “classic” humanitarian problems mentioned at the beginning of this
section.^17 Even the most optimistic scenarios suggest that extreme weather events
will become more frequent and more intense, mostly resulting in adverse effects on
human systems.^18 Overall, the weight of scientific analysis behind landmark
documents such as the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change and the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Assessment Reports, the most
recent of which came out in 2007, suggests that climate change presents, even in
best-case scenarios, a daunting challenge to human survival in many parts of the
world.^19 According to John Holmes, the outgoing UN Under-Secretary-General for
Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator: “[any] credible vision of
16
For a selection of major practitioner reports, see CARE International, Maplecroft and
OCHA, Humanitarian Implications of Climate Change: Mapping Emerging Trends and Risk
Hotspots (CARE International, 2008). Available at
http://www.careclimatechange.org/files/reports/CARE_Human_Implications.pdf; accessed
on 20 August 2010. Global Humanitarian Forum, The Human Face of Climate Change ,
Forum 2008 (Geneva: Global Humanitarian Forum, 2008). Available at http://www2.ghf-
ge.org/annual_forum/forum_2008_new/index.cfm. IOM, Migration and Climate Change
(Geneva: International Organization for Migration, 2008). Available at
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/lib.nsf/db900sid/ASAZ-
7CGDBH/$file/iom_dec2007.pdf?openelement; accessed on 20 June 2010. UNDP, Fighting
Climate Change. For a summary of the data as applied to individual countries, see UNDP,
UNDP Climate Change Country Profiles. Available at http://country-profiles.geog.ox.ac.uk/;
accessed on 20 August 2010. Another useful resource is CARE, Climate Change Information
Centre 17. Available at http://www.careclimatechange.org/; accessed on 20 August 2010.
See for instance Nicholas Stern, A Blueprint for a Safer Planet: How to Manage Climate
Change and Create a New Era of Progress and Prosperity (London: Bodley Head, 2009), 27-
- Good popular surveys are Elizabeth Kolbert, Field Notes from a Catastrophe: A Frontline
Report on Climate Change (London: Bloomsbury, 2007). Mark Lynas, Six Degrees: Our
Future on a Hotter Planet (London: Harper Perennial, 2008). See also Jared Diamond,
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed 18 (New York: Penguin, 2005).
IPCC, Climate Change 2007: Synthesis Report. Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III
to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(Geneva: IPCC, 2007), 12. Available at
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/syr/en/contents.html; accessed on 13
August 2010. 19
Ibid. Nicholas Stern, The Economics of Climate Change: The Stern Review (London: HM
Treasury, 2006). Available at http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http://www.hm-
treasury.gov.uk/stern_review_report.htm; accessed on 13 August 2010.