Japan struggled on Tuesday, July 10, 2018 to restore utilities after its worst weather disaster in 36 years killed 155 people, with survivors facing health risks from broiling temperatures and a lack of water, while rescuers kept up a grim search for victims.

Torrential rain unleashed floods and landslides in western Japan last week, bringing death and destruction, especially to neighborhoods built decades ago near steep slopes.

The government said 67 people are missing.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe cancelled an overseas trip to cope with the disaster, which at one point forced several million from their homes.

Power had been restored to all but 3,500 households but more than 200,000 people remain without water under scorching sun, with temperatures hitting 33 Celsius in some of the hardest-hit areas, such as the city of Kurashiki.

“There have been requests for setting up air-conditioners due to rising temperatures above 30 degrees today, and at the same time we need to restore lifelines,” Finance Minister Taro Aso told newsmen after a cabinet meeting.

Roads caked in dried mud threw up clouds of dust when rescue vehicles or other cars drove by.

Stunned survivors recounted narrow escapes.

“It was close. If we had been five minutes later, we would not have made it,” said Yusuke Suwa, who fled by car with his wife early on Saturday when an evacuation order came after midnight.

“It was dark, and we could not see clearly what was happening, although we knew water was running outside. We did not realise it was becoming such a big deal.”

A quarter of flood-prone Mabi district of Kurashiki, sandwiched between two rivers, was inundated after a levee crumbled under the force of the torrent.

The government has set aside ¥70 billion ($631 million) in infrastructure funds with ¥350 billion ($3.15 billion) in reserve, Aso said, adding that an extra budget would be considered if needed.

“When necessary amounts firm up … we would consider an extra budget later on if these funds prove insufficient.”

Japan issues weather warnings early, but its dense population means that almost every bit of usable land, including some flood plains, is built on in the mostly mountainous country, leaving it prone to disasters.

Some residents of Mabi had shrugged off the warnings given the area’s history of floods.

“We had evacuation orders before and nothing happened, so I just thought this was going to be the same,” said Kenji Ishii, 57, who stayed at home with his wife and son.

But they were soon marooned by rising flood waters and a military boat had to pluck them from the second floor of their house, where they had taken refuge.

Most of the deaths in Hiroshima, one of the hardest hit prefectures, were from landslides in areas where homes had been built up against steep slopes, beginning in the 1970s, said Takashi Tsuchida, a civil engineering professor at Hiroshima University.

“People have been living for 40 to 50 years in an area that had latent risk, but decades went by without disaster,” he said.

“But intense rainfall has become more frequent, and the hidden vulnerability has become apparent,” he said, adding that people live in many such dangerous areas.

Though the weather has cleared up, the disaster goes on.

A new evacuation order went out on Tuesday in a part of Hiroshima after a river blocked by debris overflowed its banks, affecting 23,000 people.

Another storm, Typhoon Maria, was bearing down on outlying islands in the Okinawa chain but it had weakened from a super-typhoon and was not expected to have any impact on Japan’s four main islands.

Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary, Yoshihide Suga, on Tuesday, July 10, 2018 said floods in Japan, caused by heavy rains, left 134 people dead, while 88 are missing.

As of Monday night, 126 people were considered dead; over 60 were believed to be missing.

“As far as we know, 134 people have died.

“Ten people are officially listed as missing. At the same time, it has been impossible to confirm the security and location of 78 others,’’ Suga told a news conference.

According to the cabinet secretary, the authorities have received about 100 alerts from witnesses who said they saw floodwater washing away a car with people inside.

“To aid the damaged areas, ¥‎2 billion (about $18 million) has been allocated,’’ Suga added.

Heavy rain poured down on the southwest and centre of Japan earlier this month, causing flooding and landslides.

About 1,800 people were evacuated from the affected areas by Monday night, over 11,000 people were staying in special shelters. Power was cut in over 20,000 households.

Maurince Otieno has been a fisherman for over 15 years.

He inherited this outstanding skill of fishing from his late grandfather, George Omollo Otieno, who was a renowned fisherman in his time.

For the past several months, Otieno, who does his fishing along the shores of Dunga beach in Lake Victoria, has been experiencing difficulties in his fishing expedition despite his bloodline skills.

Otieno, currently in his late 40s, says he no longer harvests sufficient fish to meet the needs of his immediate and extended family that depends on him.

This has made him a very scared man. He is afraid of what the future holds for him and his family as his only source of income continues to diminish very fast.

“We are doomed. I don’t know how I will support my family now that I hardly have any catch. I am a worried man,” he says as we set out for a fish expedition along the shores of Lake Victoria in Dunga beach.

Ever since the passing on of his father more than 10 years ago, Otieno notes he has been eking out a living out of the turbulence waters of Lake Victoria.

He observes that his father and grandfathers, were all fishermen and they passed the skills of fishing on to their siblings.

But Otieno notes that the tradition that has always been passed down from one generation to another was bound to come to an end in his life time as fishing spots continue to diminish along the shores of Lake Victoria.

“I am certain that my generation will have nothing to pass down to coming generation as it has been our norm and tradition,” stresses Otieno in a low tone with a sense of disappointment.

He notes that his family has been forced to find alternative ways to make a living besides fishing which has been their bloodline.

“I don’t know what is happening to our God given lake, we hardly catch any fish,” narrates Otieno as he jumps into his dilapidated boat.

“You see all these,” he says as he hands me a life jacket and shows me a fleet of abandon boats that were on the verge of rotting, “the owners abandon them here due to declining fish in the lake.”

With disillusionment evident in his hoarse voice, he engages the forward gear to his boat and the engine roars as we begin to drift and gain momentum as the boat accelerates.

I engage a handful of fishermen that we find, and their sentiments were similar.

After three hours of fishing with no success, we docked the boat at the shores of Dunga beach.

It was at this beach that I was lucky to bump into a researcher and scientist who, according to Otieno, has been doing “serious research “of the lake.

Dickson Wallace, the scientist and researcher, says he has been conducting research on the lake for over three years.

Wallace notes that the lake was adversely being impacted negatively by climate change that is common with extreme weather patterns over a period.

He attributes extreme weather changes to climate change, which he says was also being experienced not only in Nyanza region of Kenya but also across other neighbouring towns.

To this end, he observes that the rampant variation particularly in temperatures, may have been the cause of declining marine life at Africa’s largest lake – Lake Victoria.

“It is no doubt that a significant number of aquatic marine are usually affected by extreme weather conditions caused by climate changes,” he says.

A report released by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) this year which assessed the extinction risk of 651 freshwater species in Lake Victoria including fish and aquatic plants found that up to 24 percent of these species are being threatened with extinction.

The world nature watchdog cautioned that “three-quarters (76 percent) of these endemics are at risk of extinction.”

Will Darwall, the co-author of the report who heads IUCN’s freshwater biodiversity unit, said in the report that although “the Lake Victoria Basin is incredibly rich in unique species found nowhere else on Earth, its biodiversity is being decimated.”

Apart from climate change, the report attributed this to Industrial and agricultural pollution, invasion of the deadly water hyacinth, over-harvesting of fish and wetland degradation among others.

One of the worst affected fish species is the African Lungfish, according to this report.

As discovered by this report, Kibet Chemiron, a marine expert and fellow at the University of Port Elizabeth in South Africa, confirms the negative effects of climate change on freshwater species in Lake Victoria.

According to Kibet, most aquatic animal species that are used for human consumption are poikilothermic (animals whose internal body temperatures change with the temperature around them) and are usually affected by extreme weather brought by climate change.

Chemiron explains that any changes in habitat temperatures usually influence fish metabolism, growth rate, productivity, seasonal reproduction, and susceptibility to diseases and toxins.

“Fish population may be reducing drastically as a result of these factors emanating from climate change,” he says.

Rose Anyango, a resident who has a mini food joint at the beach says they no longer have access to clean water.

“The dams where we used to access clean water are now filled with mad caused by flooding water,” she states.

Courtesy: PAMACC News Agency

Six sovereign wealth funds which collectively represent more than $3 trillion in assets have committed to only invest in companies that factor climate risks into their strategies, thereby helping to achieve the climate goals of the Paris Agreement.

Given the size, long term investment horizons of sovereign wealth funds (SWFs), and the financial risks posed to SWFs should warming exceed 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, SWFs are in a unique position to both benefit from sustainable market outcomes and to accelerate the transition to a low carbon economy.

The six funds are organised in the “One Planet Sovereign Wealth Fund Working Group”,  established in December 2017 at the One Planet Summit in Paris, France. The working group consists of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, Kuwait Investment Authority, the New Zealand Superannuation Fund, Norges Bank Investment Management of Norway, the Public Investment Fund of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and the Qatar Investment Authority.

In a joint statement from all six SWFs, they said: “By using the Framework, SWFs can reinforce their long-term value creation, improve their risk-return profile, and increase long-term portfolio resilience by factoring and integrating climate issues into their decision-making.”

They added that they hope “other long-term institutional investors will be able to make use of this Framework in the execution of their mandates and investment objectives.”

The framework is based on three principals: alignment, ownership, and integration.

Alignment of investment decisions with climate change conscientiousness includes the recommendation of public reporting on the alignment and the consideration that the financial risks from climate change may prevent SWFs from delivering the same returns in the future.

The second principal of ownership encourages companies to take responsibility for climate change in their business strategy and planning, governance, and risk management.

Companies are expected to understand the implications of their greenhouse gas emissions and take responsibility for reducing the emissions to levels agreed upon in the Paris Climate Agreement.

SWFs are also encouraged in the framework to help companies understand the financial risks of climate change that the Paris Agreement seeks to address.

Ownership also suggests that SWFs require companies to provide regular reporting of climate change related data according to the Greenhouse Gas Protocol and the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures.

The third and final principal is the full integration of climate change related risk and investment opportunities into the SWF investment strategy. Funds should be managed according to the expected transition to a low carbon economy and include a focus on investment in climate change adaptation and mitigation to reduce investment risks. Climate change risk should also be considered in new investment decisions.  An investment that would increase greenhouse gas emissions and thus climate change will lead to greater risk in the future and should be avoided.