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Reducing Climate-Related Disasters and Adapting to Climate Change. Meeting of European National Platforms and HFA Focal Points Paris, 24-25 April 2008 UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction www.unisdr.org. www.unisdr.org. Overview of the problem.
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Reducing Climate-Related Disasters and Adapting to Climate Change Meeting of European National Platforms and HFA Focal Points Paris, 24-25 April 2008 UN International Strategy for Disaster Reductionwww.unisdr.org
www.unisdr.org Overview of the problem • Disasters affect millions, cause big losses, hinder the achievement of MDGs • Key issue is human vulnerability, root causes of risk are social and economic • Main problem is awareness and political commitment – risk is not well factored in • Knowledge, tools and policy frameworks are readily available • Climate change makes a bad situation worse, adds to the urgency
Climate change will increase disaster risks • Mounting evidence - heatwaves, coldwaves, loss of glaciers and polar ice, record cyclone numbers • 4th IPCC Assessment: expect temperature increases, sea level rise and more intense rainfall and drought • Vulnerable areas: Africa, mega-deltas of Asia, small island states, Europe increase in temperature, floods • Record number of humanitarian Flash Appeals in 2007 (15) – most are for climate events • A more extreme climate will expose and hurt the most vulnerable
www.unisdr.org Bali Action Plan: Options for Reducing Disaster Risks • Call for enhanced action on adaptation, including: • Risk management and risk reduction strategies, including risk sharing and transfer mechanisms such as insurance; • Disaster reduction strategies and means to address loss and damage associated with climate change impacts in developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change • Key recommendations for national action • Develop national mechanisms to link and coordinate CC adaptation and disaster risk reduction policies • Conduct a baseline assessment on the status of disaster risk reduction and related CC adaptation efforts in the country and undertake climate risk assessments • Prepare CC adaptation plans drawing on the Hyogo Framework
www.unisdr.org Steps to reduce risk of climate-related hazards • Reduce greenhouse gas emissions! (CC mitigation) • Enhance close relationship between CC and DRR focal points. • Forge coherent approaches to CC adaptation and DRR • Make CC adaptation a fundamental pillar of any post- 2012 agreement • Ensure that risk reduction and risk management approaches (HFA) are core elements of CC adaptation • Establish mechanisms to provide sufficient funding for adaptation and risk reduction • Take immediate action to implement CC adaptation and risk reduction in vulnerable countries in the period 2008-2012 • Use the ISDR system to boost efforts to promote risk reduction management • Make risk a central issue in development policy and programmes
www.unisdr.org Key steps to reduce risk of climate-related disasters Europe: • Engagement at the EU/EC Green Paper on climate change adaptation. • National Platforms have identified Climate Change as one of the possible area of coordinated efforts in Europe to highlight DRR issues; • A number of key meetings are taking place in Europe.
www.unisdr.org Main events in 2008 for pursuing disaster risk reduction agenda • Twenty-eighth sessions of the Subsidiary Bodies, 2-13 June, Bonn, Germany • Thirty-fourth G-8 Summit, 7-9 July, Hokkaido, Japan • International Disaster Risk Conference, 27 Aug – 1 Sep, Davos, Switzerland • 29th session of IPCC, 1-4 Sep, Geneva, Switzerland • UN Climate Conference, COP 14, 1-12 Dec, Poznañ, Poland • COP in Copenhagen in Dec, 2009