Annual Report 2022
Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre
PREFACE
Twenty-twenty-two will be remembered by the humanitarian community and history, above all, as the year the conflict in Ukraine began. In some ways, the reappearance of conventional war between the armies of two nations in Europe took the Red Cross Red Crescent back to its roots.
In the Climate Centre, we continued to grapple with the challenges of the relatively new threat, historically speaking, of a climate crisis that is reshaping the world; in a real sense, it has been complicating and aggravating the impacts of the new war that involves countries that are also significant exporters of food and fertilizer.
As an IFRC reference centre, we continued to support the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement (“the Movement”) and its partners in reducing climate risks – in line with commitments in our joint ambitions and the climate charter. This applies not just directly to the themes detailed in this report, but also to the wider climate agenda – including locally led adaptation, National Society agendas, and climate-smart programmes at bilateral and multilateral levels.
Climate is altering the nature of humanitarian preparedness, with last year seeing the most ambitious target yet for early warning related to extreme weather: in March, the UN unveiled its goal of having everyone on Earth protected by early-warning systems within five years, with closing gaps in Africa a top priority.
A few weeks later, the IFRC set itself the target of allocating a quarter of its Disaster Response Emergency Fund to anticipatory action by 2025 – included in a new operational framework for scaling up the methodology that originates in a 2019 vision for forecast-based financing of the IFRC, the German Red Cross and the Climate Centre.
But at this writing, the earthquakes in Turkey and Syria have reminded us that – even as humanitarians make ever-greater efforts to predict what can be predicted in terms of climate impacts – seismic disasters, like wars and pandemics, remain almost entirely unpredictable.
Rarely has the concept of compound risks that was the focus of our annual report a year ago felt more apt.
The Climate Centre board at the June 2022 Council of Delegates, right to left: Katrin Wiegmann, observer (ICRC Deputy Director General); Maarten van Aalst, director; Yolanda Kakabadse, chair; Marieke van Schaik, member (NLRC General Director); Xavier Castellanos, member (IFRC Under Secretary General). (Derk Segaar/NLRC)
The Climate Centre board at the June 2022 Council of Delegates, right to left: Katrin Wiegmann, observer (ICRC Deputy Director General); Maarten van Aalst, director; Yolanda Kakabadse, chair; Marieke van Schaik, member (NLRC General Director); Xavier Castellanos, member (IFRC Under Secretary General). (Derk Segaar/NLRC)
We argued in November that there was no clear consensus on whether COP 27 in Sharm El-Sheikh would go down as a success or failure overall; even if it was a success, at least, in establishing the first global fund to channel support to vulnerable countries experiencing loss and damage related to climate change.
In fact, we added, at no time has the relevance of the humanitarian sector to the climate issue seemed so clear. The IFRC delegation, comprising numerous National Societies at the COP, launched its new global climate resilience platform there, and engaged on multiple fronts in Sharm El-Sheikh, alongside the ICRC, and partners like the German Red Cross-hosted Anticipation Hub and the Risk-informed Early Action Partnership, along with some impressive youth representatives.
It is also now a time of transition for us as a team, starting with the news in late November that our greatly respected and much-loved director Maarten van Aalst, who took over from the Climate Centre’s founder Madeleen Helmer in 2011, was leaving to become the next Director-General and Chief Science Officer of the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute; we all wished him well.
Later came the announcement that Marieke van Schaik, the Secretary General of the Netherlands Red Cross, our hosts, is also moving on in 2023.
The Climate Centre is hugely indebted to both, and we draw strength from their legacies in bracing for the challenges and harnessing the opportunities that lie ahead.
by Yolanda Kakabadse, and Acting Directors Julie Arrighi and Carina Bachofen
At right: Khadar Mohamed Mahamud is the Somali Red Crescent Society Branch Coordinator in Burao, whose team is responsible for mobile health care and responding to the ongoing drought, with everything from tree-planting and rehabilitating water points to humanitarian cash, as part of a project supported by ECHO. (Angela Hill/IFRC)
Climate Centre high-level indicators
Climate Centre high-level indicators
Policy
‘The global response to Covid-19 proves that governments can act decisively in the face of imminent global threats. We need the same energy and action to combat climate change now’
– IFRC Secretary General Jagan Chapagain, response to IPCC Working Group II report
An analysis led by the Climate Centre of requests about disaster risk reduction to the NDC Partnership made recommendations for the future, and showed that many countries do now cover disaster risk in their Nationally Determined Contributions.
In February, the IPCC’s Working Group II reported for the first time that climate change is already contributing to humanitarian crises in vulnerable contexts. Maarten van Aalst, a Coordinating Lead Author, emphasized the key conclusion that the window for concerted global action to secure a liveable future is rapidly closing; yet if we raise our ambition to adapt to the rising risks, with the most vulnerable people a priority, we can still avoid the most devastating consequences.
The Climate Centre also created a cartoon summary of eight humanitarian insights drawn from WGII.
On the heels of that report, Egypt and the UK organized a new dialogue that gathered diplomats, academics, climate scientists, international organizations and other agencies in Geneva and online to discuss the policy and humanitarian implications of climate change. We designed group discussions on anticipatory action, incorporating climate risk into humanitarian programming and conflict settings, supporting local action, and loss and damage.
Chronic drought in Afghanistan got more publicity and had wider impacts in 2022, but here Afghan Red Crescent personnel provide cash relief to people affected by unseasonal floods – an example of compound impacts dominating the contemporary policy agenda for humanitarians. (Afghan Red Crescent Society via IFRC)
Chronic drought in Afghanistan got more publicity and had wider impacts in 2022, but here Afghan Red Crescent personnel provide cash relief to people affected by unseasonal floods – an example of compound impacts dominating the contemporary policy agenda for humanitarians. (Afghan Red Crescent Society via IFRC)
At the UN ECOSOC Humanitarian Affairs Segment, our Acting Director Carina Bachofen was on a high-level panel on the humanitarian impacts of the climate crisis; she noted that humanitarian agencies and the IFRC in particular is investing more in preparedness, and that anticipatory approaches are needed on a much greater scale.
As evidenced in the IFRC’s 2022 report Making it Count: Smart Climate Financing for the Most Vulnerable People, many highly vulnerable countries are not receiving the support for adaptation they need and are being left behind.
Its five-year Global Climate Resilience Platform, which it launched at COP 27, meanwhile, would support 500 million people by raising at least 1 billion Swiss francs, focusing on early warning and anticipatory action, nature-based solutions, safety nets and shock-responsive social protection.
Both these 2022 IFRC products included input from us.
While COP 27 ended with the surprise establishment of a fund for countries experiencing the impacts of climate change, the lack of progress on adaptation and ambitious mitigation was worrying. What remains clear is that Red Cross Red Crescent messages and National Societies’ work are more important than ever, continuing to call for engaging local actors in decision-making and implementation, as well ensuring support reaches those on the front lines of the climate crisis.
The IFRC delegation at the COP covered at least 85 side-events on topics including food security, attribution science, loss and damage, displacement, youth, nature-based solutions, anticipatory action, climate finance for the most vulnerable, and more.
The Climate Centre will continue to support the IFRC, ICRC, and National Societies and their partners in this policy space, bridging policy, practice and science as we have been doing over the past two decades.
Anticipatory action
‘The Council of Delegates … calls upon the components of the Movement, in accordance with their mandates and roles, to increase their engagement on anticipatory action, particularly to extend its geographical reach’
– Resolution 2, 2022 Council of Delegates (extract)
Guatemalan Red Cross volunteers evacuate residents shortly before the River Motagua broke its banks after TS Julia in October; part of the first-ever early action protocols triggered in Central America. (Guatemala Red Cross)
Guatemalan Red Cross volunteers evacuate residents shortly before the River Motagua broke its banks after TS Julia in October; part of the first-ever early action protocols triggered in Central America. (Guatemala Red Cross)
The Council of Delegates in Geneva resolved to scale up anticipatory action to better assist people in vulnerable situations and build on the role of the Red Cross Red Crescent as a champion in this area. The resolution –Strengthening anticipatory action in the Movement: Our way forward – was initiated by the IFRC, ICRC, the German Red Cross, and the Climate Centre.
We provided technical advice in the field to all seven early action protocols activated in 2022, addressing a variety of climate-related hazards.
EAPs were implemented in Niger for floods and food insecurity, in Kyrgyzstan for heatwaves, in Mali for floods, in the Philippines for Tropical Storm Nalgae, in Guatemala and Honduras for floods after Hurricane Julia, and in Mozambique for TS Ana; feasibility studies were conducted in Burkina Faso, Palestine, Somalia and Yemen, among others.
The Tajikistan Red Crescent used forecasts of an extreme coldwave to test planned early actions that included provision of non-food items to nearly 200 households in Rasht district, bordering Kyrgyzstan.
Guatemalan Red Cross volunteers evacuate residents shortly before the River Motagua broke its banks after TS Julia in October; part of the first-ever early action protocols triggered in Central America. (Guatemala Red Cross)
The Anticipation Hub, of which the Climate Centre is a part, participated in various events including the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction where we released a statement on how anticipatory action and DRR can contribute to the Sendai Framework.
The hub, hosted by the German Red Cross, facilitated several regional dialogue platforms, allowing policy-makers, practitioners and scientists to exchange knowledge on anticipatory action, along with its working groups on conflict and health.
At the end of the year, the World Bank’s Understanding Risks forum took place, and the Climate Centre jointly led a satellite event in London and several sessions on the main stage in Brazil.
We contributed to academic papers on: investing in communication and response to early actions, weather forecasts in conflict contexts, adapting to climate change through anticipatory action, and impact-based forecasting.
It was announced that the IFRC, with other agencies, will jointly lead two of the four pillars of the UN executive plan to bring the entire world population under an early warning umbrella by 2027.
Attribution
‘This year felt hot and dry? We need to become resilient to that.’
– Dr Friederike Otto tweet (Grantham Institute for Climate Change, WWA joint lead)
With our partners in the World Weather Attribution group we contributed to ten studies last year, providing thresholds of impacts to justify bringing extreme events under the microscope, devising precise impact-based definitions of events, and conducting real-time analyses of the human vulnerability that aggravates disasters.
In chronological order, we found that climate change increased the rainfall associated with a succession of storms and floods to hit Madagascar, Malawi and Mozambique.
The first of two studies in May of early-season, prolonged heat in India and Pakistan found that climate change made it 30 times more likely, while it exacerbated the rainfall behind catastrophic floods and landslides in the South African provinces of Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal (photo).
In June, we found climate change increased the chances of the extreme rainfall that resulted in catastrophic floods and landslides in north-eastern Brazil, while vulnerability and exposure from urbanization and changes in land use played a significant role in impacts (main photo).
In July, 40°C was recorded for the first time in Britain in the modern era – an extraordinary event that we found was made at least ten times more likely by climate change.
In September, a real-time attribution study of the extreme monsoon rainfall that led to a second superflood in Pakistan, one that did not recede for months, found climate change played “an important role”, although the data didn’t allow us to quantify it; this study also fitted with long-term projections for South Asia.
The summer drought in western Europe was studied in the context of several others in the northern hemisphere, where high temperatures driven by climate change and low rainfall combined to reduce soil moisture, with cascading impacts on agriculture, energy and economies.
In November, we studied food insecurity in the Sahel and found it was largely driven by non-climatic factors such as rainfall variability and chronic issues related to insecurity, global food-prices, and local reliance on rain-fed agriculture.
In the same, month we released a study of the large-scale flooding in June in West Africa and found that climate change increased the intensity and likelihood of such extreme rainfall there.
Finally, in December, we studied the record-breaking early-season heat in Argentina and Paraguay and estimated that climate change increased the odds of such an event by 60.
World Weather Attribution studies won widespread media coverage from major news outlets globally.
Dumazile Mtshali, a KwaZulu Natal resident, lost everything in April in severe floods and landslides that the WWA partnership said were made approximately twice as likely by human-induced climate change. (Moeletsi Mabe/IFRC)
Dumazile Mtshali, a KwaZulu Natal resident, lost everything in April in severe floods and landslides that the WWA partnership said were made approximately twice as likely by human-induced climate change. (Moeletsi Mabe/IFRC)
Health
‘Signs of change provide some hope that a health-centred response might be starting to emerge’
– 2022 Lancet Countdown on health and climate change
Our work at the intersection of climate and health rapidly expanded in 2022. We prioritized health in anticipatory action through two feasibility studies for early action protocols in Yemen and Cox’s Bazar.
The health team is a founding member and co-chair of two new working groups for anticipatory action. The working group on anticipatory action and health, co-chaired with the German Red Cross, has started to develop resources for the Movement; an inter-agency working group, which we co-chair with UN OCHA and Médecins Sans Frontières, brings together researchers and practitioners from across the humanitarian sector.
We continue to work with the IDAlert Consortium to advance early warning systems for infectious disease within the EU.
We also prioritized knowledge dissemination and resource development throughout 2022. The team conducted a survey with National Societies to better understand utilization of the health tools currently available.
We updated and expanded the health module within the Climate Training Kit by developing five new resources, including mental health and finance.
A Georgian Red Cross volunteer helps a family clean out their home in the Senaki region after serious floods in 2022; climate change is creating conditions ever more incompatible with human health and well-being. (Georgian Red Cross)
A Georgian Red Cross volunteer helps a family clean out their home in the Senaki region after serious floods in 2022; climate change is creating conditions ever more incompatible with human health and well-being. (Georgian Red Cross)
Through our partnership with ENBEL, we contributed to conferences on climate and health in Tshwane, South Africa and with the Ugandan health ministry.
We completed a scoping review on the current state of climate finance for the health sector. Poor funding for health adaptation continues to be a concern, and this research, to be published with a policy brief in 2023, will support advocacy efforts to close the gap.
The health team supports interdisciplinary collaboration within the Climate Centre across thematic areas, including conflict, urban contexts and extreme heat, anticipatory action, and innovative engagement.
In collaboration with the IFRC secretariat, the team led a social media campaign to increase public awareness through personal narratives in advance of COP 27. It represented 43 artists and storytellers, 11 organizations, and all five IFRC regions, and reached at least 22 million accounts on Instagram.
Climate and conflict
‘The ICRC is calling on world leaders to live up to their commitments under the Paris Agreement and the Agenda 2030 and ensure that vulnerable and conflict-affected people are supported to adapt to a changing climate.’
– Press release for COP 27
In scaling up our work in 2022, we supported 35 ICRC delegations, including bespoke screening for climate factors for 15 – in Sudan, for example, to ascertain how climate and hydrometeorological conditions feature in ICRC programming centred on protection, economic security, water and habitat, health and physical rehabilitation, and more.
We conducted in-person training and awareness sessions for ICRC delegations in Colombia, Lebanon, Mali, Senegal, Switzerland and Syria, and remote capacity-building for Jordan, Sri Lanka, Venezuela and Yemen, among others; we also developed a training module for Kenyan farmers.
Again in Colombia and in Syria, we tested a survey of climate knowledge with local teams, expected to be developed into a tool for the Movement and the humanitarian sector in 2023.
Our work was reflected in the integration of weather and climate services in Mali, where the Climate Centre supported climate action as part of an ICRC climate and conflict challenge.
In advancing knowledge on the intersection between climate, conflict and displacement, we supported World Bank climate research…
A training session for the ICRC in Colombia on Movement ambitions for climate action. (Marcel Goyeneche/Climate Centre)
- ...in Mozambique, on the compound effects of intense Tropical Cyclone Kenneth.
- ...in Honduras, with a historical analysis of Hurricanes Eta and Iota, including investigation of related disaster-management at a forensic level.
- ...in partnership with the University of Cape Town, on the Angola: Country Climate and Development Report.
- ...and in Burundi on the report Tackling Climate Change, Land Degradation and Fragility, facilitating a climate action plan to be rolled out for the country’s most high-risk collines (literally ‘hills’, a sub-division of communes) between 2023 and 2024.
In the Middle East and North Africa, we helped the UK Met Office improve knowledge about weather and climate services, with the aim of informing the UK-funded programme ‘Pioneering a Holistic approach to Energy and Nature-based Options in MENA for Long-term Stability’.
We helped the Norwegian Red Cross and the ICRC develop a flagship report about climate and environmental degradation and conflict in the MENA region, presented at the UN in New York at the end of the year.
We were awarded other important grants, including from the UK and Canada for a four-year research programme ‘Resilience and preparedness to tropical cyclones across Southern Africa’, with a focus on displacement and conflict.
On policy, at the global level we assisted development of the ICRC report, Embracing Discomfort: A Call to Enable Finance for Climate-Change Adaptation in Conflict Settings, launched at COP 27.
We also participated in a high-level session on scaling up risk reduction in fragile and conflict contexts at the September Asia-Pacific ministerial conference on disaster risk reduction in Brisbane, Australia.
A training session for the ICRC in Colombia on Movement ambitions for climate action. (Marcel Goyeneche/Climate Centre)
A training session for the ICRC in Colombia on Movement ambitions for climate action. (Marcel Goyeneche/Climate Centre)
Urban
‘This report is an important step in improving urban heat resilience and saving lives in my city. As a municipal worker in Nepalgunj, I am pleased that we have begun utilizing the information and accompanying tools to take meaningful planning measures around heat risk’
– Prakash D.C., Environmental Engineer, Nepalgunj
In 2022, among other widely reported cases of extreme heat, parts of Pakistan reached 51°C, while May temperatures in northern India were at their highest since 1966.
The Red Cross Red Crescent launched Heat Action Day on 14 June, when National Societies performed flashmobs in public spaces around the world to raise awareness of heat risks and share simple ways to (as per the Twitter arm of the campaign) #BeatTheHeat.
At least 50 National Societies and other agencies, spanning all but one of the world’s continents, took part, and other activities included webinars and social media.
The IFRC issued a joint press release with C40 Cities. Sharing a platform with Athens Chief Heat Officer Eleni Myrivili, IFRC President Francesco Rocca stressed the importance of swift action on heat to avoid its worst impacts.
The World Urban Forum (WUF11) ended in the Polish city of Katowice with one of a number of aims to “reposition the New Urban Agenda strategically as a road map for accelerating sustainable development, climate action, and building peace.”
IFRC and Climate Centre engagement at WUF11 (photo) included a high-level dialogue on resilience for sustainable urban futures, which heard that resilience could potentially turn the disruption of the pandemic into opportunities for urban innovation.
Walter Cotte, IFRC Special Representative of the Secretary General for Covid-19, in Katowice for WUF11, with Polish Red Cross volunteers and Ukrainian refugees, and on the right Sandra D’Urzo, IFRC Senior Officer, Urban Preparedness and Response. (Polish Red Cross)
Walter Cotte, IFRC Special Representative of the Secretary General for Covid-19, in Katowice for WUF11, with Polish Red Cross volunteers and Ukrainian refugees, and on the right Sandra D’Urzo, IFRC Senior Officer, Urban Preparedness and Response. (Polish Red Cross)
Maimunah Mohd Sharif, Executive Director of UN-Habitat, told the closing ceremony that the “climate emergency, pandemics, the housing crisis, violence and conflict all converge in cities”.
With the Global Disaster Preparedness Center and the Global Heat Health Information Network, we launched a research programme involving 15 teams working in 12 low- and middle-income countries looking at impacts, thresholds, and the public perception of risk.
Two cities – in Nepal and Bangladesh – were chosen as for another study by the Climate Centre with support from the Asia Regional Resilience to a Changing Climate programme.
Nepalgunj in southern Nepal is a major business hub, but extreme heat is a growing concern there, with temperatures reaching 40°C nearly every year.
Rajshahi, in north-west Bangladesh, sees humidity peak at around 65 per cent and an average maximum temperature touching 43°C. Until recently, there was no systematic assessment of heat risk or coordinated action in either.
With the Nepal Red Cross branch, we also developed a plan for action on heat in Nepalgunj – to our knowledge the first of its kind in Nepal, providing training for officials, and supporting a month-long public awareness campaign on extreme heat.
Climate Centre engagement at the annual Rise Africa Action Festival, jointly organized by our urban team, included sessions on creativity, facilitation of hybrid meetings, and mitigating extreme heat in cities. The virtual conference sought to inspire Africa-based thinking to address complex urban challenges aggravated by climate change and inequality.
Social protection
‘Covid-19 proved that social protection is a powerful tool to minimize risk. We need to galvanize that momentum to ensure ad hoc mechanisms are transformed into long-term programmes’
– Manannan Donoghoe, Oxford University, Climate Centre
A vaccination session in the Philippines – among many countries that scaled up social protection to combat the Covid-19 pandemic. (Philippine Red Cross)
A vaccination session in the Philippines – among many countries that scaled up social protection to combat the Covid-19 pandemic. (Philippine Red Cross)
In August, a pilot exercise for shock-responsive social protection was carried out by the Nigerian Red Cross in Kaduna (main photo), activated by a forecast-based trigger for elevated flood-risk. With technical advice from the Climate Centre, this was the first exercise of its kind to have delivered anticipatory support in alignment with existing social protection schemes.
In Sierra Leone, the Climate Centre has been providing technical assistance to the National Commission for Social Action and supported the development of a contingency plan for various hazards, including finance, trigger design, and climate data; also enabling the Sierra Leone Red Cross to develop a simplified early action protocol for floods.
In an innovative research project in Colombia, the Climate Centre has been scoping a model for cash transfer with the dual objectives of poverty reduction and environmental conservation.
We have been providing technical support on scaling up a social safety net programme centred on nutrition and implemented through Concern in Ethiopia, Niger, South Sudan and Sudan, and including elements of anticipatory action.
A vaccination session in the Philippines – among many countries that scaled up social protection to combat the Covid-19 pandemic. (Philippine Red Cross)
Several tools and methodologies were developed by the Climate Centre as part of the ongoing support to the German Red Cross: a training module on social protection for National Societies; a checklist for the integration of forecast-based action and social protection, and a brief on using existing social protection databases.
We also developed a general brief on possible synergies of social protection with the water, sanitation and hygiene sector.
In 2022, the Climate Centre led two coordination platforms: an informal Movement working group on social protection and climate, and an international platform jointly led with the ILO, with sub-groups on adaptation, mitigation and financing.
We published two research reports on early warning early action for typhoons in Palau and drought in Tuvalu, involving the University of the South Pacific as well as the two National Societies and the IFRC in the region, as well as a feasibility study for the use of social protection systems to manage climate risks in the Dominican Republic.
The Climate Centre supported the successful completion of the ECHO-funded project on forecast-based action and shock responsive social protection in the Nepalese provinces of Lumbini and Sudurpaschim.
Over the course of two years, the Nepal Red Cross and the Climate Centre helped establish links between social protection and disaster management, and mechanisms to enable the rapid delivery of cash in anticipation of floods.
Youth
‘What really strikes me is how the Red Cross Red Crescent has started acknowledging that young people are indeed the leaders driving climate action’
– Michelle Chew, IFRC Youth Commission Asia Pacific representative
Egyptian Red Crescent CEO Ramy ElNazer with young volunteers from different National Societies at COP 27. (Egyptian Red Crescent)
Egyptian Red Crescent CEO Ramy ElNazer with young volunteers from different National Societies at COP 27. (Egyptian Red Crescent)
The Climate Centre expanded its outreach to young people worldwide by launching a Youth Advisory Group (main photo), comprising well-networked climate champions, representing all the IFRC regions, each with a different specialty such as mental health, migration, education.
They are tasked with supporting the strategy on youth-led climate action, increasing knowledge exchange among Red Cross Red Crescent youth, and providing strategic advice to the IFRC board and the Climate Centre.
They have provided significant visibility to Red Cross Red Crescent youth climate action by joining a range of virtual and face-to-face platforms, including at the UN climate talks in Egypt.
The youth team also jointly organized the annual Red Cross Red Crescent climate and youth summit, which young people joined from all around the world, demonstrating their engagement by sharing their insights on the UN climate talks, sharing best practices in youth engagement for youth climate action, and engaging in a dynamic intergenerational dialogue.
IFRC Secretary General Jagan Chapagain told young people who logged on from all over the world he was “very proud that the young have secured official recognition as stakeholders in designing and implementing climate policies and action. This is real and long overdue progress.”
Egyptian Red Crescent CEO Ramy ElNazer with young volunteers from different National Societies at COP 27. (Egyptian Red Crescent)
We ensured young people were involved in the Day of Heat Action on 14 June, where among other things flashmobs were organized around the world, and facilitated a workshop for Belgian Red Cross youth day.
The team launched a new project: the Valuing Water Initiative’s Youth Journey, hosted by the Netherlands Enterprise Agency in partnership with the International Union for Conservation of Nature and others, to strengthen youth engagement in water governance, building on Y-Adapt, and advocacy work centred on water.
In terms of tools, the team has focused on continued rollout of Y-Adapt – in Iran, Thailand and Lebanon, for example – and has supported the development of tools for teenagers from the Global Disaster Preparedness Centre.
In collaboration with the IFRC Asia Pacific region, we are supporting the development of Safe Step Kids – Climate Change, a cartoon-based series that presents children with practical actions they can take.
Finally, we have supported the Japanese Red Cross youth exchange programme that focused on climate change and attracted more than 300 young volunteers from 20 different countries.
Innovation
‘The unique selling point of Daybreak is that it’s not only something that brokers knowledge, but also gives you hope that you can do something collaboratively’
– Sayanti Sengupta, Climate Centre technical adviser, quoted in Bloomberg UK
As our world changes at an accelerating pace, the Climate Centre continues to generate innovations that bring humanity to the core of the many climate-related processes shaping our future.
The Climate Centre has continued to create new approaches that link climate science, policy, and humanitarian practice, generating innovations that bring humanitarian concerns to the core of the processes redefining our future.
Innovative collaborations during 2022 included: a workshop at UCL’s Warning Research Centre; a cartoon-based synthesis of the latest IPCC report; beta-testing the climate board game Daybreak at COP 27; the Art/Science Symposium 2022 at Singapore’s ArtScience Museum; and a wall-mounted time capsule built from an old car engine, to be opened in 2050, at the Red Cross Red Crescent Museum in Geneva.
The Climate Centre joined forces with its supporting partners in the Anticipation Hub to stage multiple events at the Understanding Risk 2022 conference in Florianópolis, Brazil, and at a satellite meeting in London jointly led with the Lloyd’s Register Foundation, where volunteers and speakers from the British Red Cross also took part.
In UR-Florianópolis, we harnessed the power of acrobatics, juggling and other circus arts to nurture inspiration and action. For example, with the World Bank, and the Circocan International School of Circus, we helped design a professional acrobatic performance (video) and used it to distill humanitarian insights in a video entitled Aerial acrobatics for anticipatory action. (See also Behind the scenes with Circocan.)
At UR-London, we created art story-maps and a collage of illustrations. Participants learned about compound risks by experiencing a new collaboration between the Climate Centre’s innovation lead, Pablo Suarez, and Doughnut Economics author Kate Raworth. We also supported a session on Artificial Intelligence.
The Climate Centre has been expanding its collaboration with AI experts, including the Human Computation Institute and Cambridge University. We aim to better understand how humanitarians can harness the combined brainpower of people and machines, as well as build capacity to address what can go wrong.
We joined forces with the Cambridge University Centre for the Study of Existential Risk on the danger of large-scale volcanic eruptions that could block sunlight on a planetary scale for well over a year, altering rainfall and temperature patterns (image). A workshop held in September in Cambridge brought together experts, practitioners, funders and artists, with the goal of increasing preparedness across relevant sectors.
We remain engaged as a humanitarian voice in the rapidly evolving field of geoengineering that might artificially have similar sun-blocking effects to cool the planet, and a specialized journal has invited three Climate Centre team members to co-edit a special issue entitled Solar Geoengineering in the Horizon: Humanitarian Dimensions.
The world has opened up again post Covid and, more than ever, we promote effective and innovative engagement in both virtual and hybrid events. This enables reaching scale, promotes inclusion, and reduces greenhouse gas emissions.
Other 2022 highlights include: the hybrid Global Dialogue Platform, with 200 in-person and more than 500 virtual participants; cartoon engagement for the European Investment Bank’s Know Your Hazard event, with one cartoon artist and a facilitator in-person and one of each online; and cartoon collaborations in preparation for the Global Resilience Hub at COP 27.
Our commitment to capacity building continued with an internal Virtually Amazing fellowship and other coaching opportunities. We engaged Movement partners with the design and facilitation of hybrid workshops, for the Adaptation Research Alliance, for example.
The Climate Centre also supported two training series in collaboration with the IFRC on climate finance and nature-based solutions, facilitated learning sessions at a conference on existential risk in the Finnish city of Turku, and offered an internal training session at the UK Met Office climate week.
A cartoon representation of the blanket of volcanic ash around the Earth, highlighting an as-yet unquantified danger to humanity. (Hameed Khan, Eugenia Rojo)
A cartoon representation of the blanket of volcanic ash around the Earth, highlighting an as-yet unquantified danger to humanity. (Hameed Khan, Eugenia Rojo)
Communications
‘I have long advocated for the creative community to be involved in changing minds, enhancing awareness, and encouraging engagement on climate’
– Halisi Monray, climate artist, Climate Art and Stories Campaign (Day 18)
Our social media audience continued to grow apace in 2022, and we are now adding Twitter followers at an average rate of 25 a week, having passed the 10k mark in October; this is largely attributed to the growing prominence of the climate issue in the humanitarian sector over all, as well as the strategic use of hashtags and photo research.
We published 120 web news stories, covering all aspects of the humanitarian impacts of climate change, with special reference to the work of National Societies and the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement generally.
Videos from 2022 now available on our Vimeo site from 2022 include a series of Beat the heat productions filmed in Burkina Faso, Germany, India, the Netherlands, Uganda, the US and Zimbabwe; a three-part production on a Kenya Red Cross simulation testing its early action protocols; multiple productions for the 14 June heat action day, including heatwave safety in Nepali and Bengali languages; and the SHEAR final event.
We opened up an additional social media platform with Instagram, inspired by the very positive response to the Climate Art and Stories Campaign, which ran every day in October and reached more than 20 million accounts on the platform (see also Innovation).
Most if not all the World Weather Attribution studies of which the Climate Centre was a part won global media coverage, such as the New Scientist on the historic UK 40°C heatwave, the Financial Times on the Pakistan superflood, and PBS on the storms that hit Madagascar, Mozambique and Malawi successively, to name but three.
Incorporating specialist input from the Climate Centre when appropriate, IFRC Secretary General Jagan Chapagain spoke on climate in major global forums on at least 15 occasions in 2022.
Maarten van Aalst’s direct media engagement, conducted in close coordination with the IFRC secretariat communications team, included Reuters and The Lancet on COP 27 issues, DutchNews.nl on heat in Europe, and the Japan Times on UNDRR’s Global Assessment Report 2022, again to name but a handful.
Professor Van Aalst has now moved on to become Director-General and Chief Science Officer of the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute; he will be greatly missed not only as our director but also as an extremely effective spokesperson on climate for the Movement and the humanitarian sector as a whole.
Throughout October, the IFRC, Climate Centre and ENBEL Consortium shared art and personal stories related to climate change. (IFRC)
Throughout October, the IFRC, Climate Centre and ENBEL Consortium shared art and personal stories related to climate change. (IFRC)
Finance
The Climate Centre – an independent foundation under Dutch law – remains grateful to its hosts, the Netherlands Red Cross in The Hague, which also assists with human resources and legal affairs.
We were supported last year by the European Commission, the ICRC and the IFRC secretariat, and these National Societies (alphabetically):
American Red Cross
Australian Red Cross
British Red Cross
Danish Red Cross
French Red Cross
German Red Cross
Netherlands Red Cross
Norwegian Red Cross
Swedish Red Cross
Swiss Red Cross
Other contributors were (alphabetically):* the Atlantic Council, Centre national de la recherche scientifique (France), CICERO Centre for International Climate Climate-KIC/EIT, Concern Worldwide, Cordaid, DAI Global, the European Investment Bank, the (UN) Food and Agriculture Organization, the German Agency for International Cooperation, ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability, the Inter-American Development Bank, International Union for Conservation of Nature, Liechtenstein, the Met Office (UK), the Overseas Development Institute (UK), Practical Action, Save the Children, SouthSouthNorth, Stichting Deltares (Netherlands), Stichting VU (Netherlands), Tetra Tech ARD (US), the United Nations Environment Programme, the World Bank, the World Food Programme, the World Health Organization.
We are also grateful for contributions from the Universities of Bristol, Reading and Stockholm.
A full financial statement will be available in our hard-copy report later this year.
As always, we thank all our donors for their generous support.
*Some agencies are best known by their acronyms.
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