Climate News
El Niño's reach: a drought crisis in Papua New Guinea, forecasting fears in the US
Extreme drought driven by a historic El Niño is affecting as many as 8 million people in Papua New Guinea, The Guardian reports, with shortages of food and water, electricity blackouts, health clinic closures and disrupted schooling. An influential coalition of churches, trade unions and business groups has called it a "national crisis".
There appears to be "no coordinated plan to protect vulnerable communities from the worsening impacts of El Niño." — PNG coalition of churches, unions and business groups, via The Guardian
The warnings are not new. In June, the Pacific Islands News Association (PINA) reported that PNG's prime minister had ordered nationwide preparations as El Niño threatened a prolonged dry season. In August, PINA reported a provincial governor warning that his province was unprepared for El Niño impacts "on another scale". Hawaii Public Radio reported the same month that South Pacific countries were already dealing with drought.
The same El Niño is expected to affect weather far from the Pacific. The Guardian separately reports warnings that sweeping cuts at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have hampered the country's ability to forecast and respond to extreme weather this winter.
How each outlet framed it
- The Guardian — the humanitarian scale in PNG, and a separate warning about US preparedness.
- PINA — the regional record: months of official warnings before the crisis deepened.
- Hawaii Public Radio — the wider Pacific picture of drought.
What we don't know yet: how long the drought will last, and whether aid will reach remote highland and island communities in time.