‘Risk multiplier’: super El Niño looms over Cop31 as climate pattern fuels global disasters
The strongest El Niño event in at least 1,000 years is adding urgency to UN climate talks in Turkey, fueling global disasters while wealthy nations lag on climate finance promises.
The "jaw-dropping" El Niño, a naturally recurring phenomenon where the eastern Pacific heats up every few years with temporary but global implications, has provided added urgency to wrangling at the Cop31 summit over climate funding for vulnerable countries. Already, warping global weather patterns have fuelled huge wildfires and crop failures in Indonesia, coastal inundation in the US, severe drought in Sudan and severe flooding in countries including Ecuador and Somalia.
We are supercharging our weather and El Niño will be a risk multiplier.
Pacific nations suffer
Drought has ravaged the Marshall Islands, a small Pacific atoll country which relies heavily on rainfall for its water. The nation has declared a state of emergency as the drought compounds existing threats from rising seas.
It's a compounding crisis, we are trying to prepare but the drought has already hit and it's on top of having to deal with rising seas that threaten our homes and drinking water.
Finance shortfall
Last year, wealthy countries agreed to triple adaptation finance to poorer nations, but just a fraction of the $305bn needed by 2035 is being delivered. This shortfall will be sharply felt as El Niño takes its toll.
Worsening crises ahead
A cascade of different crises are expected as El Niño peaks in December and reverberates throughout next year, which is almost certain to be the hottest ever recorded. On land, there will be heatwaves, crop shortages and irregular rainfall, while ocean corals will likely bleach through heat stress.
We are very concerned as the forecast for El Niño this year is the worst one ever.
UN officials are particularly concerned about east Africa, where exacerbated drought will force more people to move. The UNHCR predicts as many as 3m displacements across Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan and Uganda due to this El Niño.
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