One in three people in informal settlements in the global south live in floodplains and are at risk of a “disastrous flood”.
That is according to a new study published in Nature Cities, which measures the flood risk of global-south populations living in “slums” – as defined by UN-Habitat.
Using a combination of machine learning, satellite images, household surveys and socioeconomic data, the study finds that these slum populations are often concentrated in regions that have recently or frequently experienced severe floods.
Though large slum communities are vulnerable to floods, limited locational choices often mean that inhabitants have nowhere else to go, according to the study.
The research reveals the consequences of socioeconomic challenges when compounded with environmental pressures driven by urbanisation.
Dr Gode Bola, a water risk and climate scientist at the Congo Basin Water Resources Research Centre, who was not involved in the study, tells Carbon Brief:
“Slums in the Congo Basin used to face flooding to an extent that communities could deal with. Rainfall, which is where climate change is coming in, has meant people are facing larger floods and it’s difficult for people to adapt.”
Hotspots and vulnerability
According to the UN definition used by the study, slum households are those in urban areas that lack at least one of the following: “durable housing, sufficient living space, easy access to safe water, adequate sanitation and security of tenure.”
Using this, the study estimates that at least 17% of the global-south population, equivalent to more than 880 million people, live in slums. For some countries, such as Sierra Leone and Liberia, a majority of the population live in slums, the authors note.
Many of these slum communities are situated in areas that face substantial flood exposure. The study identifies northern India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Rwanda and the coastal regions of Rio de Janeiro as notable hotspots – as the map below illustrates:
Beyond physical exposure, these communities face social vulnerabilities that are exacerbated by flooding. Poor infrastructure, limited access to social services and a lack of institutional support impede effective responses to floods in these areas, the study finds.
At 80%, sub-Saharan Africa has the highest proportion of slum populations living in floodplains, the study finds.
Despite these challenges, relocation opportunities for people living in slums are slim. Financial constraints and reduced access to employment make it difficult to move to safer areas. Flood zones often offer cheaper land or housing, which pushes poorer households into vulnerable areas, the study finds.
For example, flood-prone areas in Mumbai in India, Dar es Salaam in Tanzania and Jakarta in Indonesia are considered “low value”, the authors say, making it more accessible to those in urban areas with lower incomes.
Nevertheless, the need for housing and an income continue to draw people to these flood-risk zones, separate research suggests.
Bola tells Carbon Brief:
“These slums are less expensive and poor people can afford the land. They buy this plot of land for life and asking them to relocate is asking them to have savings to buy another plot when there are no loans or government assistance.”
Disastrous floods
The authors mapped where slum populations are concentrated and where disastrous floods have historically occurred across 129 countries in the global south.
Disastrous floods were categorised in the study as events that resulted in “severe societal disruption, often leading to fatalities and severe humanitarian consequences”.
Their findings showed that, across the global south, those living in slums make up 35% of the total population, but account for 41% of those who live in flood-prone areas. This suggests that slum residents are more likely to settle in flood-risk areas in comparison to non-slum residents.
In fact, the study finds that in countries which often face disastrous floods, such as Bangladesh, slum residents are overrepresented in nearly all areas where disastrous floods have occurred.
Rourkela and Kinshasa’s slums
Floods in Rourkela, India, and Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, in recent months illustrate the issue of slums being situated in floodplains.
Heavy monsoon downpours caused floods in slum settlements in Rourkela, while floods and landslides devastated 13 communes in Kinshasa’s urban slums, resulting in 165 deaths.
In Kinshasa, rapid urban growth is pushing development into floodplains without proper infrastructure, making floods worse and recovery harder, according to a recent article by researchers. As a result, healthcare systems and transportation are routinely damaged.
In India, separate research suggests that slum settlements are prone to flooding because many are in low-lying areas on the periphery of water bodies, without proper storm-water drainage.
According to the new study, rapid urbanisation and land pressures will likely drive even more slum populations into flood zones in the global south, indicating that the cases of Rourkela and Kinshasa could become an even more frequent reality.
Flood protection
The “intensifying” effects of climate change amplifies the need to address the location of slums in the global south, the authors state.
However, other research has shown that minimal policies to support slum communities in flood zones exist. Yet, as rapid urbanisation occurs, slums continue to spread into high-risk areas.
Poor governance has failed to recognise the rights and needs of the urban poor in city planning, according to research from Cities Alliance.
The study in Nature Cities mentions that governments are often politically reluctant to formally recognise slums because doing so could increase pressure to deliver services, complicate future development plans or damage the international image of the city or country.
Dr Nausheen Anwar, director of Karachi Urban Lab and principal researcher and urban climate resilience lead at the International Institute for Environment and Development, tells Carbon Brief about the government response to flooding of informal settlements in Karachi in 2022.
Anwar, who was not involved in the new study, says:
“People were living alongside the banks of those specific channels and were quickly labelled as encroachers, even though many of them had tenure in these informal settlements and the supreme court essentially backed the entire plan for eviction. This is where the role of the law became very effective in displacing people and razing their homes.”
The authors of the study say their findings can be used to inform data-driven policies that address flood risk, as well as to help shape local regulations.
In the study, they call for governments to recognise the inequalities that slum populations face and to acknowledge slum communities as key stakeholders. This would mean considering their needs and interests when designing policies to respond to climate change.
The authors also suggest that communities be empowered through capacity building, including training in sanitation and waste management.
Anwar adds:
“Data speaks for itself whether it comes in the form of numbers or is quantitative or qualitative…We need that to buttress the sort of changes we want to make on ground in terms of influencing policy agendas and planning interventions, whether it is at the local scale or going up even at the global scale.”
The post Third of ‘slum residents’ in global south are exposed to ‘disastrous’ flood risks appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Third of ‘slum residents’ in global south are exposed to ‘disastrous’ flood risks
Electrification of transportation and the power grid all but require lithium to make batteries—but mining it takes a toll on delicate ecosystems. Still, there are reasons for hope.
From our collaborating partner Living on Earth, public radio’s environmental news magazine, an interview by Paloma Beltran with Thea Riofrancos, the author of “Extraction: The Frontiers of Green Capitalism.”
A new panel of experts, bringing together some of the world’s top climate scientists, has called on governments to develop roadmaps for phasing out fossil fuels “anchored in science and justice”.
Launched on Friday in Santa Marta, Colombia, along with a set of 12 initial policy recommendations, the panel’s appeal came ahead of a key ministerial meeting on equitable ways to reduce dependence on coal, oil and gas during next week’s “First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels”.
Sixty countries head to Santa Marta to cement coalition for fossil fuel transition
Presenting the panel’s recommendations in a packed Santa Marta Theatre, Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), said the push for a global transition away from fossil fuels offers “a light in the tunnel” during a “very dark moment” of geopolitical conflict and climate extremes.
“Science is here to serve,” Rockström said. “We’re today launching the Science Panel for the Global Energy Transition (SPGET) as a service, as a global common good for all countries, all sectors, all regions to connect to the best science enabling a transition away from fossil fuels.”
The panel is urging countries to create “whole-of-government” plans to “dismantle legal, financial and political barriers” to the energy transition. Its insights are intended to inform top officials from 57 governments who will gather in Santa Marta for high-level discussions on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Draft roadmap for Colombia
Colombian Environment Minister Irene Vélez Torres said the panel “addresses a longstanding shortcoming” in international climate science, by creating a scientific body dedicated solely to overcoming the world’s reliance on fossil fuels.
“It’s a first-of-its-kind, designed to organise in the next five years the scientific evidence that allows cities, regions, countries and coalitions to take the big leap,” Vélez told the event in Santa Marta.
As an example of how countries can move forward – even when their economies are closely tied to the production and use of dirty energy – a group of European scientists presented a draft roadmap to phase out fossil fuels in Colombia, with inputs from the Colombian government. It will be used as a basis for further consultation in the Latin American nation to define the way forward.
To phase out fossil fuels, developing countries need exit route from “debt trap”
Piers Forster, director of the Priestley Centre for Climate Futures at the University of Leeds and co‑author of the roadmap, said it shows “a clear pathway to economic and societal benefit”, with average annual investment of $10.6 billion producing net economic benefits of $23 billion per year by 2050.
The document says fossil fuels in Colombia can be phased out through energy efficiency measures, coupling renewable generation with energy storage, and switching to electrified transport. But, it adds, the government will need to plan for reduced revenue from fossil fuel exports, which roughly half by the mid-2030s.
“What matters now is moving beyond headline targets to create credible, policy-relevant roadmaps, enabling a just and effective transition,” Forster said in a statement. Brazil is also working on a national roadmap for its own economy, as well as leading a voluntary process to produce a global roadmap.
IPCC hobbled by politics
Currently, the world’s top climate science body – the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – requires countries to sign off on each “summary for policymakers” of its flagship science reports. This has led to a politically fraught process that has increasingly seen some oil-producing governments making efforts to weaken its recommendations.
In a bid to focus scientific debates on the phase-out of fossil fuels, the new SPGET was created based on a mandate from last year’s COP30. It is also meant to come up with scientific recommendations at a faster pace than the IPCC’s seven-year cycle.
Natalie Jones, senior policy advisor at the International Institute of Sustainable Development (IISD), called the new scientific panel “historic”, as it will be “more specific, more targeted and potentially more agile” with its advice on phasing out coal, oil and gas than the IPCC’s exhaustive scientific synthesis reports.
Why the transition beyond fossil fuels depends on cities and collective action
One of the SPGET members, Peter Newell of the UK’s University of Sussex, said “there are many different challenges along the way – and not all of them have to do with lack of evidence”, but the phasing out of fossil fuels “is one part of the story and it’s important to address it”.
The panel will be co-chaired by Cameroonian economist Vera Songwe, PIK’s chief economist Ottmar Edenhofer and Gilberto M. Jannuzzi, professor of energy systems at Brazil’s Universidade Estadual de Campinas. It will be composed of between 50 and 100 scientists divided into four working groups: transition pathways, technological solutions, policies and finance.
Under the 12 insights for the Santa Marta process, the panel recommended banning new fossil fuel infrastructure, mandating “deep cuts” in methane emissions, implementing carbon levies on imports, and de-risking clean energy investments via interventions from central banks, among others.
The post New panel of climate scientists calls for fossil fuel transition roadmaps appeared first on Climate Home News.
New panel of climate scientists calls for fossil fuel transition roadmaps
Despite not yet paying out any money, a UN-backed fund meant to address the loss and damage caused to developing countries by climate change could face “liquidity issues” by the end of next year, its head warned today.
With ten projects already requesting $166 million in total, the fund’s Executive Director Ibrahima Cheikh Diong warned a board meeting in Zambia that the fund was likely to be “oversubscribed” and should anticipate cashflow problems.
A framing paper prepared by the fund’s secretariat similarly warns that “given the current status of the capitalization of the Fund, there is a risk of the Fund exhausting its capital by the end of 2027, which could result in a loss of operational momentum and expose the FRLD to reputational risk”.
Since governments agreed to set up the fund at UN climate talks in Egypt in 2022, wealthy nations have promised $822 million, but delivered just $449 million.
The fund is expected to approve its first projects at its next board meeting in July. Early proposals submitted include strengthening responses to floods in Bangladesh and the Nigerian city of Lagos, and improving water infrastructure in Jamaica following Hurricane Melissa last year.
Millions not billions
ActionAid Zambia climate justice coordinator Michael Mwansa told the board meeting that he was concerned about “the failure of the Global North governments to deliver on their climate finance obligations, making it largely impossible to scale up [the fund’s initial stage] significantly, if at all”.
“Pledges remain nowhere near the billions and even the trillions needed to address loss and damage to the Global South”, Mwansa added, highlighting reports which found that financing loss and damage could cost developing countries up to $400 billion a year.
The fund’s board discussed its strategy for raising more money at its meeting this week while climate campaigners called, in an open letter, for it to aim to secure $50 billion a year from developed countries starting next year, rising to $100 billion a year by 2031 and $400 billion by 2035.
The World Bank-hosted fund aims to have revenue-raising rounds known as replenishments every four years, with the first in 2027.
Governments have agreed to “urge” developed countries to contribute but only to “encourage” other nations to do so and the fund’s secretariat wants to appoint a “high-level champion” to lead the replenishment team.
The fundraising strategy will be discussed further at the next board meeting in the Philipines in June.
Campaigners’ open letter calls for developed countries to contribute more and for them to introduce taxes on fossil fuel companies, financial transactions, luxury air travel and wealth to raise money for the fund.
“Rich countries must be held strictly accountable for the devastation they have caused,” said Climate Action Network International head Tasneem Essop. “Their failure to fulfil their responsibility to the Loss and Damage Fund is not just an oversight; it is a shameful betrayal of humanity.”
The post New loss and damage fund could run out of money next year appeared first on Climate Home News.
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