In Peru, mega-disasters of the past must serve as a warning of future climate risks

LIMA, Peru — The new report from the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, outlining the impact and risks of a warming planet, reminded me of one of the great tragedies to hit my own country, Peru.

On May 31, 1970, a huge magnitude-8 earthquake struck off the coast of Ancash about 100 kilometers north of Lima. In a matter of seconds, shockwaves dispersed across a wide area to the east of the quake’s epicenter, leaving a trail of destruction in their wake.

Among other things, the sheer impact of the tremor destabilized the northern wall of mount Huascaran, causing an enormous piece of glacial ice and rock to carve off and hurtle towards the valley below. Measuring 100 meters wide and 1.6km long, this vast mass of debris reached speeds of 300km per hour at its peak. When it arrived at the villages of Yungay and Ranrahirca, it buried everything in sight.

Some 100,000 people lost their lives, making the Great Peruvian Earthquake the worst natural disaster in our nation’s history – and the most deadly avalanche of all time.

Here’s where climate change comes in. Mount Huascaran is just one of the Andean tropical glaciers experiencing accelerated retreat because of global warming. In fact, Peru is home to 70 percent of South America’s Andean tropical glaciers, and together they have registered a loss of more than 20 percent of their ice mass in the last three decades.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) impacts report, this pattern is repeated around the world, with glaciers shrinking in many regions and tropical glaciers losing between 20-70 percent of their surface area since the 1970s.

The melting of Peru’s glaciers has a direct effect on the availability of water for human consumption and for agriculture, which places even greater stress on this already scarce resource in some of our poorest highland and coastal communities. The glacial melt is also increasing the risk of disasters including avalanches, mudslides and overflow of high mountain lakes.

The growing number of glacial lakes and the speed at which they form makes them unstable and subject to sudden collapse. It is worrisome that Peru, with more than 700 glaciers in an active seismic region, is particularly vulnerable. Monitoring the water levels of mountain lakes, draining lakes on a regular basis and implementing early warning systems in vulnerable towns and communities can address these risks.

In Ancash’s Cordillera Blanca, for example, CARE, an international humanitarian agency, has been working alongside the Swiss Government to establish Peru’s first real time early warning system to monitor and address the increased risk of natural disasters around one particularly vulnerable lake known as “513.”

The combination of new monitoring sensors around the lake, computer-based modeling of avalanches, new hazard maps for the city of Carhuas and established evacuation protocols and procedures means the population are well prepared if disaster strikes.

Yet setting up early warning systems in high mountain areas is costly and complex, and countries like Peru don’t have the technical and financial resources to ensure the safety of every town and community that lies at the foot of a glacier.

As the tropical Andes melt — some glaciers are predicted to disappear within 20 to 50 years — increasing the risk to poor and marginalized communities that make up the majority of the people living in these vulnerable regions.

Although these communities have done the least to cause the emissions that drive climate change, they will suffer its worst impacts.

It is time for the rich nations of the world, those that have the historical responsibility for creating the climate problem, to help developing countries and their people cope with its effects.

That means leading the way in taking urgent action to limit global emissions, help vulnerable people and communities adapt to and prepare for the impact of climate change and support the world’s most vulnerable in dealing with the significant loss and damage that is already occurring.

When ministers from the world’s governments meet in Lima for the next round of UN climate talks in December, they need to get out in to the Peruvian countryside, into the mountains and highlands, and see for themselves the changes the IPCC describes in its report.

When they return, to their negotiating halls, they must be prepared to translate the facts on the ground into ambitious political decisions in support of the world’s poorest people living on the climate change front-line. As the Great Earthquake of 1970 reminds us, the risks of inaction are far too great to ignore.

Milo Stanojevich is CARE Peru’s National Director. CARE began working in Peru following the devastating 1970 Ancash Earthquake, and humanitarian and directs development projects in Peru.