Libya flood deaths expose climate chasm in conflict-hit states
- Floods in Libya highlight 'adaptation apartheid'
- Conflict-torn nations struggle to access climate finance
- Lack of protection measures perpetuates vicious cycle
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Libya's situation echoes that of other turbulent countries like Afghanistan and large parts of Africa's Sahel region, which face growing climate-related threats while grappling with political instability and weak governance, making it harder to access funding for measures to protect people and assets.
Back in 2007, South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a Nobel peace prize laureate, described this situation as "adaptation apartheid".
"Leaving the world's poor to sink or swim with their own meagre resources in the face of the threat posed by climate change is morally wrong," he wrote in a U.N. report. "Unfortunately... this is precisely what is happening."
That observation about the lack of finance for vulnerable people on the frontlines of a warming world - repeated many times since by a growing chorus of climate justice activists - appears to have changed little on the ground.
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