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Climate change forces Zurich Climate Resilience Alliance to expand focus on destructive extreme heat

By Practical Action
4 September 2024
Location: Bolivia
Issue: Climate Resilience
A scorched landscape with charred ground and smoldering remnants of vegetation after a wildfire. Sparse trees and smoke are visible.

The escalating threats posed by extreme heat and increasingly destructive wildfires and storms has led an alliance funded by the Z Zurich Foundation to significantly expand its work.

The shift was motivated by the increasing severity of climate change impacts globally.

Since its formation a decade ago, the Zurich Climate Resilience Alliance has primarily focused on flooding. However, as the frequency of heatwaves, wildfires and other climate hazards has skyrocketed in recent years, broader climate resilience strategies are now essential.

Practical Action is a founder member of the Alliance and has played a key role throughout, helping ensure that communities vulnerable to climate change are at the centre of decision-making and implementation.

By 2035, the Alliance aims to help 70 million people who are at risk due to climate change, with an immediate target of positively impacting 5.5 million individuals by 2027.

This shift comes in response to alarming trends: over the last two decades, extreme wildfire incidents have more than doubled, with six of the most severe instances occurring in the past seven years alone.

As part of this expanded focus, the Alliance will extend its operations to Pakistan, Nigeria, and Fiji.

That will be in addition to existing work in 15 countries, with the goal of providing critical support to vulnerable populations facing the brunt of the climate crisis.

 

Several people carrying yellow containers are attempting to extinguish a fire burning a thatched-roof structure and nearby palm trees.
Scorched forest area with charred trees and burnt ground, remnants of a recent fire evidenced by ashen debris scattered across the landscape.

Chris Anderson, Climate Resilience Programme Manager at Practical Action said:

“With the increasing frequency and intensity of climate hazards that we are seeing, it’s clear that climate change is having a profound impact on our environment, particularly impacting those in vulnerable social or economic circumstances and eroding progress in development”

“The impacts of climate hazards are not felt equally, disproportionately affecting women, children, the elderly and low-income communities. We must prioritize targeted investments to avoid unnecessary suffering of vulnerable marginalised people and ensure a climate resilient future for all.”

“We have done this by pioneering a new approach for measuring vulnerability and resilience to climate hazards, through our community resilience measurement tool, and we look forward to making use of this in our new areas of work.”

 

 

The dire situation is exemplified by the recent crises in Bolivia and Bangladesh.

Bolivia is in the throes of its worst fire season in 14 years, witnessing devastating destruction of protected areas and habitats.

In Bangladesh, 2024 has marked record-high temperatures averaging between 40 to 42 degrees Celsius, affecting over 75 per cent of people.

Globally, regions from Southeast Asia to North America and Southern Africa are grappling with relentless wildfires, exacerbated by climate change. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) highlights a clear link between rising global temperatures and increased wildfire risk, further compounded by human activities such as deforestation and land-use changes.

In 2023 alone, wildfires consumed nearly 12 million hectares worldwide, with Canada suffering immensely, experiencing about 65% of fire-driven tree cover loss. The economic impact of these disasters is staggering, affecting local economies, disrupting agriculture and tourism, and incurring costs estimated in billions.

Practical Action and the Zurich Climate Resilience Alliance are committed to mitigating these increasingly severe risks through collaborative efforts that include:

  • Developing early warning systems for extreme flood, heat, wildfires, and storms.
  • Implementing sustainable agricultural practices and improving its use.
  • Establishing standardized definitions of heat events to improve planning and response.

This strategic shift aims to leverage over a decade of expertise in building flood resilience to deliver impactful, scalable solutions against heat, storms, and wildfire hazards.

For more information about the Zurich Climate Resilience Alliance and its initiatives

Contact Steve Kubate:

 

Note to editors:

The Zurich Climate Resilience Alliance is a coalition of private sector, research and civil society organisations dedicated to enhancing community resilience to climate change in both rural and urban communities. By implementing solutions, promoting good practice, influencing policy, and facilitating systemic change, we aim to ensure that all communities facing climate hazards are able to thrive.

By the end of 2023, the Alliance had through its community programs and advocacy had beneficially impacted 3.14 million people and influenced USD 1.26 billion of funding towards climate resilience.

How wildfires undermined our work in Bolivia:

The communities we work with in Bolivia know first-hand the devastating impact heat and wildfires can have on their lives and livelihoods.

In November 2023, hundreds of farmers who worked with Practical Action in the Amazonian region of San Buenaventura had introduced regenerative farming techniques and were demonstrating their farms so that thousands of others could follow their lead.

But in October a period of intense heat, with temperatures reaching above 40 Celsius, combined with prolonged lack of rainfall  to create several forest fires, forcing families to stop farming, evacuate and help with the efforts to put out the fires.

The farmers, who had spent their lives working their plots, lost their precious cacao and banana trees and saw precious hardwood trees go up in flames, losing decades-worth of income in minutes.

Houses, clean water supplies and community centres were all destroyed in the fires, leaving desperate families with nothing.

One victim, Daniela Mamio from the Capaina community, said: “The plot of my father Wenceslao Mamio was one hectare of cacao that has burned entirely; it was already in production. Half a hectare was being implemented; bananas, chocolates, timber plants have burned. In Capaina, 4 more families have lost all their produce. It’s sad, they had just implemented their new techniques.”

Since then, Practical Action has worked with these communities to start farming again and form brigades and early action groups, so they are better able to prepare and prevent such devastating losses when heat and fire strike in future.

The Alliance’s new focus will be using this example, and thousands of others around the world, to improve the way people prepare for climate hazards in future.

Our efforts in addressing heat & wildfires.

Practical Action is actively engaged in international efforts helping to address the incidence of wildfires, storms, and heatwaves through our work with the Zurich climate Resilience Alliance.

Leveraging over a decade of experience in building community flood resilience, the Alliance is expanding its focus to address additional climate hazards such as  extreme heat, storms, and wildfires.

  • This work aims to reduce the impacts of extreme heat events by collaborating with global, national, and local heat networks.
  • We are emphasizing the urgent need for large and targeted investments to protect vulnerable populations, as current efforts are insufficient to prevent future loss and damage.
  • The expansion into heat and wildfire resilience is driven by its increasing intensity which disproportionately affect women, children, the elderly, outdoor workers, and low-income communities.
  • Our new approach will include developing early warning systems, sustainable agricultural practices, and standardised definitions of heat events to enhance planning and response.
  • Applying successful strategies from flood resilience to other climate hazards – including the measurement of existing levels of resilience – the work will deliver impactful, scalable solutions to mitigate the effects of climate change.

The new focus on heat is crucial, as it remains a relatively new and poorly understood climate hazard. Through continued research and collaboration, Practical Action through our work in the Alliance seeks to better understand the impacts of extreme heat and develop effective strategies, ensuring a safer and resilient future for communities on the frontline of climate change and poverty.

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