The climate and environment crisis affects people across the world, but among those who suffer the most are people enduring the effects of conflict and other violence. Communities already grappling with instability, threats to their safety and disruptions to their daily lives are faced with yet another layer of challenges: the increasing perils brought on by unpredictable weather patterns, ever more destructive natural disasters, and depleting natural resources. The convergence of the climate crisis and conflict worsens food, economic and water insecurity, exacerbates disparities in access to health
care and essential services, and weakens the capacity of institutions to provide support.
Protecting livelihoods
The effects of intensified drought and flash floods are immediately felt in violence-affected communities. At its worst, crops and livestock are destroyed, and families are forced to flee their homes to get to safety or to find food.
We help people make their livelihoods more resilient to climate shocks by training farmers and cooperatives, conducting livestock vaccination campaigns, distributing disease-resistant varieties of crops, constructing or repairing irrigation systems and other infrastructure, and providing environmentally friendly equipment.
Fakii, a fisherman in Kenya, catches fish through diving and the use of environmentally friendly traps he received from the ICRC and the Kenya Red Cross. This helps him, along with many other fishermen in villages around Kenya, to support his family through practices that preserve marine biodiversity.
Integrating alternative energy sources
We continually seek out renewable and alternative sources of energy to minimize environmental degradation. With the use of solar-powered technology, water supply systems and shelters repaired or built by the ICRC are able to run with significantly lower costs and improves people’s access to clean water and electricity particularly in remote areas where these resources are limited.
Lahpai Ja Ring and her family lived in a tent for about three years before relocating to one of the resettlement sites where the ICRC has constructed homes for many other displaced households.
In Myanmar, more than 60 families displaced by conflict have settled in these new homes built by the ICRC. Their houses are fitted with kitchens, toilets, water catchment systems and solar lighting, which they say have helped them resume their daily lives. Having a place to call their home has provided them with an added sense of safety, where they can pursue other things outside of their survival.
Reducing our environmental footprint
We launched initiatives in Colombia, Honduras and Venezuela to help communities hedge against the impact of heavy rain and flooding, and to find innovative ways to ensure sustainable food production.
In Cauca (Colombia), we work with the local group, Sin Derrumbes, to introduce a reforestation technique to protect communities from landslides and to enable them to grow crops sustainably.
In Chamelecón (Honduras), we work with the National Society to improve the early warning system by rehabilitating and reinforcing a hydrological station and providing communities with equipment to pump out water during floods.
In “Cota 905” (Venezuela), we help violence-affected communities learn sustainable food production by building terrace gardens, for those with adequate space for planting, and vertical gardens, for those with limited space.
THE ICRC’S ENVIRONMENT AND DECARBONIZATION ROADMAP
We are currently working on an Environment and Decarbonization Roadmap, a strategic framework for reducing our greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2030 and for decreasing the other environmental impacts of the ICRC’s activities, including in logistics, procurement and waste management.
