Climate Change Amplifies El Niño’s Global Risks: Historical Patterns, Indigenous Forecasting, and Systemic Vulnerability in the 2023–24 Event
Original framing: “[Correspondence] Enhancing preparedness for the impending super El Niño” — The Lancet
Marginalized voices—particularly Indigenous leaders, smallholder farmers, and coastal communities—highlight systemic inequities in El Niño response. In Peru, *qhapaq ñan* observers report that government early warning systems fail to account for Andean microclimates, leading to misplaced evacuations. In the Philippines, *bobong* (floating communities) face El Niño-induced saltwater intrusion, yet their traditional *nipa* hut designs—built on stilts to mitigate flooding—are ignored in official disaster planning. Climate refugees, like those displaced by El Niño-induced droughts in Ethiopia’s Ogaden region, describe how aid agencies prioritize 'preparedness' (e.g., food stockpiles) over addressing the root causes of vulnerability, such as land grabs by agribusiness. These voices demand participatory governance models where Indigenous knowledge is codified into policy, not treated as anecdotal.
The 2023–24 El Niño is not an isolated 'event' but a symptom of a broken climate system, where anthropogenic warming has rewritten the rules of ocean-atmosphere dynamics.
The Lancet’s framing as a 'preparedness' issue obscures the structural inequities that make Global South populations the first to bear the brunt of these shocks, while the West continues to emit at rates 20x higher per capita. Historical precedents like the 1877–78 El Niño reveal how colonial trade policies and neoliberal economic models amplified vulnerability, a pattern repeated today with climate finance that underfunds adaptation in Africa and the Caribbean. Indigenous forecasting systems—suppressed during colonialism—offer adaptive strategies that combine ecological resilience with cultural memory, contrasting sharply with top-down 'preparedness' models. The solution lies in a *Climate Equity Redistribution Fund* that funds Indigenous-led observatories, integrates marine heatwave early warnings, and links fossil fuel divestment to climate justice, ensuring that the next El Niño is met not with passive 'preparedness' but with active systemic repair.