Here is yet another warning that all is not well......
ABC News, 12 June 2019:
Nearly a billion people are facing climate change hazards globally, with the Asia-Pacific region housing twice as many people living in areas with high exposure than all other regions combined, a new report has revealed.
In the annual Global
Peace Index released on Wednesday, the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP)
said an estimated 971 million people — including more than 2.4 million
Australians — live in areas with high or very high exposure to climate hazards including
cyclones, floods, bushfires, desertification and rising sea levels.
The top nine countries
facing the highest risk of climate hazards were all Asian nations with the
Philippines topping the list, followed by Japan, Bangladesh, Myanmar and China.
IEP founder and
executive chairman Steve Killelea told the ABC that many of the countries in
the Asia-Pacific region also have weaker coping capacities for natural
disasters.
"Pacific
Islands are going to be massively impacted by rising sea levels," Mr
Killelea said, adding that they would be the first affected because of their
proximity to the equator.
In Australia, the main
risks come from hurricanes and cyclones in the north, rising sea levels in the south and east, as
well as drought and desertification which is already affecting thousands of farmers, he
said.
Climate hazards
exacerbate conflict and migration
The report — which ranks
163 countries by measuring internal safety and security, militarisation and
ongoing conflict — included climate change risks for the first time this year
to evaluate links between climate hazards and violence.
It found climate
pressures can adversely impact resource availability and affect population
dynamics, which can impact socioeconomic and political stability.
"When
you start to get massive effects from climate change you start to get large
flows of refugees," Mr Killelea said, adding that this migration can
increase instability and the impact of terrorism on host nations.
Mr Killelea listed
several countries where climate change has caused or exacerbated violence
including Nigeria, where desertification has led to conflict over scarce
resources, Haiti in the aftermath of multiple hurricanes and earthquakes, and
South Sudan, where the drying of Lake Chad has exasperated tensions.
In 2017, over 60 per
cent of total displacements around the world were due to climate-related
disasters, while nearly 40 per cent were caused by armed conflict……
[my yellow highlighting]
In the Global
Peace Index 2019: Measuring peace in a complex world Australia only
ranks 13th on the global peace scale, having fallen one place since
2018 mainly because of ‘’Militarisation, namely weapons imports,
military expenditure (% GDP), and nuclear and heavy weapons. The incarceration
rate in Australia also rose”.
Australia had
a 31 percentage point gap between the per cent of men and women who feel safe
walking alone, the highest gap in all surveyed countries – a dubious honour it
shared with Moldova.
The most peaceful countries in the world in 2019— General Knowledge (@BORN4WIN) June 14, 2019
1. Iceland 🇮🇸
2. New Zealand 🇳🇿
3. Portugal 🇵🇹
4. Austria 🇦🇹
5 . Denmark 🇩🇰
6. Canada 🍁
7. Singapore 🇸🇬
8. Slovenia 🇸🇮
9. Japan 🇯🇵
10. Czech Republic 🇨🇿#GlobalPeaceIndex@GlobPeaceIndex @ipinst pic.twitter.com/QWuEAVdDr6
