It takes a village to adapt to the climate crisis

This year’s summer has been a summer like no other. As I’m writing this, Europe continues to be afflicted by record drought and a series of heat waves over the past two months.

The unusually long dry spell has left reservoirs and rivers at record low levels causing water supply issues for farmers and residents. As the temperatures soar, wildfires flared up in different areas forcing thousands of people to evacuate their homes and rendering those affected homeless.

Meanwhile, in other parts of the world, some areas in Pakistan, South Korea, the USA, and Uganda are experiencing abnormally heavy monsoon rains causing flash floods that swept away homes, claimed lives, and displaced many people.

This is now our ‘new normal’. Experts have warned we will see more extreme storms, searing droughts, and more severe floods in the years to come fuelled by global warming (IPCC Report).

Those who are already vulnerable and living in poor areas with inadequate housing and resources continue to suffer disproportionately from these impacts, despite contributing the least to the climate crisis.

Yet, there is so much that we can learn about climate resilience from these communities. They’re often the ones that can give us the best solutions when it comes to disaster preparedness and adapting to life in a changing climate.

At World Habitat, we’ve visited rural communities in the Philippines that successfully rebuilt their homes and livelihoods after being ravaged by the strongest tropical cyclone to make landfall in recorded history. CARE Philippines enabled these communities to take charge of their own recovery, supporting the self-recovery efforts of 16,000 families after Typhoon Haiyan hit, providing training on how to make their houses safer and more resilient to disasters.

We’ve also seen how remote populations in mountain regions of Pakistan improved the safety of their homes and made them better prepared for disasters through risk planning and management. AKAH Pakistan worked with these villages in mapping out their risks and supported over 20,000 families to build better homes in safer areas and in implementing their village disaster management plans, including the installation of early warning systems.

We’ve also learned the significant role of collective land tenure in providing secure housing and climate resilience for residents living in informal settlements in Puerto Rico. Caño Martin Peña’s Community Land Trust enables housing to remain affordable for local people.

This long-term stewardship empowered the communities to support their disaster recovery efforts after Hurricane Maria and prevented involuntary post-disaster displacement as would often be seen in communities that do not collectively own and manage their land.

A key to these projects’ success is a strong community-based approach to strengthening people’s resilience to climate and disaster risks. They provided support that meets local needs and draws on the communities’ existing knowledge.

By putting people at the centre and empowering them to be prepared for disasters, it allows the local communities themselves to be the key first responders in a crisis, instead of waiting for help from others. It also enables them to provide support for each other and develop their longer-term resilience.

What these projects also show is that it takes a village – a global village – to rebuild from a disaster and build resilience in the process. An entire community of people at the local, national, and international levels worked together to help those affected to rebuild their lives and communities and withstand the impacts of future challenges.

Working together is also what we must do to fight the climate crisis. Working collaboratively across sectors is crucial as the climate crisis exacerbates existing vulnerabilities and intensifies other crises that we are already facing such as the aftermath of the Covid pandemic, alongside the increasing energy, food, and cost-of-living crisis.

The good thing is we already have the solutions to these challenges – from decarbonising our built environment and improving our infrastructure to investing in renewable energy solutions and sustainable materials, from restoring nature and improving farming practices to reducing our consumption and transitioning to a green economy. We need to do our part, and pressure our government leaders and industries, in scaling these solutions quickly and equitably.