Signs of climate disasters are all around us, and they are occurring with increasing frequency and intensity. However, the people who contributed least to the climate crisis are suffering its worst and sometimes irreversible effects.

In the Horn of Africa, four rainy seasons have passed without rain. Crops have long withered, and animal carcasses litter vast tracts of barren land. We are watching a climate emergency unfold before our eyes – a massive and prolonged drought that forces people to uproot themselves in a desperate search for food and water.

Once the world’s largest refugee camp, Dadaab in the desert northeastern province of Kenya is once again hosting new arrivals from Somalia trying to escape the worsening effects of conflict and drought.

MSF medical teams at one of three camps in Dadaab say thousands have arrived since the start of the year, while more than 200,000 registered refugees in Dadaab continue to live in dilapidated tents and rundown shelters with no hope of a sustainable solution Problems. their plight.

Over the border in Somalia, the arid landscape is dotted with camps, where people fleeing hunger, rural poverty and violence have long sought refuge. Now that the clouds are disappearing again, taking with them any hope of rain, people are increasingly forced to look for support away from the earth.

More often than not, it is those communities and countries that are closest to the crisis that show solidarity and hospitality to people suffering from its direct consequences.

Kenya has long been hosting Somali refugees. In 2011, when another severe drought hit the Horn of Africa, tens of thousands of Somalis arrived in Kenya and were granted refugee status. So Kenya has shown the way by acknowledging climate change as a reason to seek asylum, along with persecution and conflict.

As more and more people arrive at its borders, Kenya could once again lead by example by allowing those fleeing conflict and drought in Somalia to live in safety and dignity, and by enabling them to move to the country and work so that they are not completely dependent. for humanitarian aid for many years.

But host countries like Kenya cannot be left alone to accommodate large numbers of refugees. Kenya has rightly criticized the lack of international sharing of responsibility for protecting and assisting displaced people around the world.

More recently, Kenya repeatedly threatened to close the Dadaab camps because it did not receive enough international support to accommodate and integrate refugees. In the decade to 2020, humanitarian aid to refugees in Kenya has fallen by nearly two-thirds, while the refugee population has only halved.

As the Horn of Africa suffers from its worst drought in 40 years, refugee communities in Kenya tell us that their solidarity is reaching breaking point. Many have lost their only source of food – livestock – because of the drought. As resources become scarcer, social cohesion will come under increasing pressure, which can lead to conflict. Conflict and climate change create an explosive mixture.

A crisis of solidarity is now giving way to a crisis of ethics, in which some of the world’s largest historical carbon emitters continue to ignore the pleas of countries that have contributed least to global warming but are suffering from its most tragic consequences.

COP27 is billed as the “COP of Africa”. Kenya and other countries in the Horn of Africa, bearing the disproportionate impact of the climate emergency and mass displacement, have made strong calls for increased international solidarity and shared responsibility.

Now world leaders must heed those voices. The historically most emitting countries must make their commitments a reality by immediately ensuring that climate-vulnerable countries receive the financial and technical support they need to prevent the mutually reinforcing effects of conflict, displacement and the climate crisis. This will be important for countries to mitigate and adapt to climate disturbances.

But some of the effects of the climate crisis are irreversible. In the Horn of Africa, farmers and pastoralists are already facing permanent loss of livelihoods as a result of the climate emergency. The world’s biggest polluters have a responsibility to support people whose lives and livelihoods are being destroyed, and to help communities and countries cope with future losses.

Assistance for loss and damage should be need-based and complement existing sources of funding, including humanitarian and development assistance. It must also be predictable so that communities and countries can rely on it to withstand the devastation caused by an increasingly erratic climate.

People already facing the irreversible effects of the climate crisis today cannot wait for future support to replace what has already been lost. They urgently need support. It’s time for the world’s biggest polluters to keep their promises. They are indebted to the people who took the brunt of their choice.

*Until recently Dana Krause It was chapter Gdoctors without borders in Kenya and o Stephen Cornwall is General Manager of the MSF Operations Center in Geneva and will lead the delegationdoctors without borders in KS27.