Relationship between disaster risk reduction, migration and climate change adaptation

1. The Game Changes
David Alexander
University College London

2. Prepare for our world as it is.
Alan Kurdi 2015
Science encourages us to look at reality
selectively, not holistically: and yet
we must look at all sides of the problem.

3. Human
misery
poverty
disease epidemics
conflict
displacement
disasters

4. Migration
crisis
Disaster
('natural',
technological,
social. intentional)
What if...?

5. Disturbing
trends

6. DISASTER
Destructiondamage casualties
Capital Labour
(fast) reformation (slower) repopulation
temporary boom
in employmentReconstruction
Recoverycapital displaces labour
unemployment and
social consequences
Slump

7. Reckless
lending
Reckless
borrowing
DEBT DEMOCRACY
Austerity
Inequality
Marginalisation
Disaffection
Disaster
impacts
Growing
vulnerability

8. London would be a very resilient city were
it not for the high price of property.
• housing agenda over-influenced
by foreign investment companies
• shortage of housing that is
not for investment purposes
• large portion of disposable income spent
on housing, less for other purposes
• poor quality and vulnerable housing
is a feature of the property market
• personal and family security reduced.

9. This situation leaves
people living on the
margins of society.
For whom is resilience?

10. "Resilience" viewed as a form of oppression
New Orleans, post-Katrina
the agenda of neo-liberal urbanism.

11. Capital is winning against labour:
when will the tide turn?
Tax havens and world trade, inequality.

12. Mobilising Science to
Implement the Sendai
Framework
Jan. 2016

13. • consolidate power structures
• augment profits, concentrate wealth
• allow introduction of conveniently
repressive measures
• permit gratuitous social engineering.
The economic and social
VALUE of disasters

14. • it is not necessarily harmed by disaster
• does capital safeguard people or itself?
The cheapness and redundancy of labour
is a form of disenfranchisement.
Capital as a resource for
disaster mitigation and recovery

16. The alternative economy
• black: mafia, drugs, people trafficking,
armaments, vice, illegal investment
• grey: person to person

17. Displacement
and migration
Climate change
adaptation
Disaster response
and mitigation

18. Migrants

19. • refugees of war, conflict,
torture and oppression
• "economic migrants"
• the displaced
• "opportunists" – e.g. myself.
Human mobility

20. Migration
• voluntary (incentive)
• induced (imperative)
• forced [trafficked]
Human mobility
• temporary (time-limited, limit unknown)
• semi-permanent (time limit unknown)
• permanent (emigration/immigration)
• statelessness.

21. • a reaction to global hegemony
• wars and proxy wars -
the struggle for power
• globalisation of production
and the exploitation of labour
• a reaction to the mobility
and concentration of capital.
Human mobility

22. Have we passed a threshold towards
a new organisation of society in which
human mobility is much more central
and important?

23. Time to re-examine notions
of geographical inertia.
Places remain, people move.

24. welfare mobility
sovereignty identity
entitlement
proxy
wars
?

25. What is welfare?
The provision of
care to a minimum
acceptable standard
to people who are
unable adequately
to look after
themselves.
But we also need
to focus on what
welfare is NOT...

26. Remittances: alternative welfare
Haiti, Nepal, the Philippines

27. Xenophobia
Distrust of
unfamiliar
people
Compassion
Desire
to help
refugees
Rejectionism
It is not
our problem
Distancing
Not in my
back yard
The role of mass cognitive dissonance
Charity
Willingness
to donate

28. • prevalence of myths and misassumptions
• migration and evacuation
• informal settlements
• precarious livelihoods
• crises of leadership.
Some parallels between disaster risk
reduction (DRR) and human mobility

29. Currently the links between DRR and
human mobility are relatively slight.
There are abundant opportunities for
them to become more significant and
powerful.

30. Antecedents: 1980 southern Italian
earthquake and Italian Government
policy on induced migration

31. Disaster and forced migration
- in a surprising variety of contexts

32. Climate change Terrorism
Displacement
and migration
Pandemics
and epidemics
Population increase
Environmentalchange
Conflict
Technological
disasters and
major incidents
'Natural'
disasters

33. Justice system
Rights Responsibilities
Moral
Ethical
Legal
Constitution
Disaster
Context of
disaster

34. Conclusions

35. Since 1970 the world has changed in
directions not mirrored in the concurrent
development of disaster theory.

36. Disaster Risk Reduction
or disaster risk creation?

37. • disaster risk reduction and climate
change adaptation will partially merge
• global mobility will become a major
factor in disaster risk reduction
• resilience acquires a double meaning
• vulnerability remains a key concept
• sustainable DRR, sustainable lives.
The future

38. Three axioms
Axiom 1
Disaster risk reduction (DRR) is about
vulnerability reduction and development.
So is human mobility.

39. Risk
amplification
factors
Risk
mitigation
factors
Total
vulnerability
Risk perception
factors- +positivenegative
DIALECTIC

40. BENIGN (healthy)
at the service of the people
MALIGN (corrupt)
at the service of vested interests
interplay dialectic
Justification Development
[spiritual, cultural, political, economic]
IDEOLOGY CULTURE

41. Axiom 2
Climate change adaptation (CCA) is
about adapting to changing vulnerability.
So is disaster risk reduction.
Axiom 3
Climate change will be a
source of human mobility.
In a situation of general
instability, so will disaster.

42. Disaster as a
negative window
of opportunity
But at the bottom
there was hope...
"Pandora's box"
theory of disasters

43. david.alexander@ucl.ac.uk
www.slideshare.net/dealexander
emergency-planning.blogspot.com
Thank you
for listening!