"Both rapid and slow-onset climactic events are exposing years of poor investment and preparedness" - U.N. special envoy
By Magdalena Mis
ROME, July 6 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The number of people affected by the combined impact of the El Nino and La Nina weather patterns could exceed 100 million by the end of the year, the United Nations said on Wednesday.
The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) estimates that more than 60 million people, two thirds of them in east and southern Africa, are facing food shortages because of droughts linked to El Nino, a climate phenomenon that occurs when water in the Pacific Ocean becomes abnormally warm.
The impact of La Nina, when waters in the eastern Pacific Ocean cool after a phase of El Nino, is not as severe - but the weather pattern has also been linked to floods and droughts.
"EL Nino has caused primarily a food and agricultural crisis," FAO Director-General Jose Graziano da Silva said at a meeting of U.N. agencies in Rome to discuss the impact of El Nino in Africa and Asia Pacific.
He said almost $4 billion was needed to meet the humanitarian demands of countries affected by El Nino.
The United Nations has called on governments and the international community to increase efforts to boost the resilience of "highly vulnerable" communities who are struggling to feed themselves, as well as to help them prepare for La Nina.
The FAO was mobilising extra funding for agriculture, food and nutrition, and to invest in disaster preparedness, he said.
"It [the FAO] will finance early actions that prevent unfolding disasters from happening," Graziano da Silva said.
Southern Africa had a three-month "window of opportunity" before the 2016/2017 planting season to take urgent measures to prevent millions of rural families becoming dependent on humanitarian assistance in 2018, according to FAO.
Macharia Kamau, U.N. special envoy on El Nino and climate, said a failure to adapt to the "new normal" of increasing climate-related emergencies like El Nino and La Nina would threaten progress on U.N. development goals.
"Both rapid and slow-onset climactic events are exposing years of poor investment and preparedness, demanding a much better financed and integrated response," Kamau said.
"These climactic events are also exposing the vulnerability of our grand plans for fighting poverty and sustaining our infrastructure," he said.
Weather forecasters in Japan, Australia and the United States predict a 50 percent to 75 percent chance of La Nina developing in the second half of 2016.
(Reporting by Magdalena Mis; Editing by Jo Griffin; Please credit Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, corruption and climate change. Visit news.trust.org)
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