Transcript Reducing climate-related disasters and adapting to

Reducing Climate-Related
Disasters and Adapting to
Climate Change
Meeting of European National Platforms and HFA Focal Points
Paris, 24-25 April 2008
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UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction
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Overview of the problem
 Disasters affect millions, cause big losses, hinder the
achievement of MDGs
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 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
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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
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 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
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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;
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• 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
1. Develop national mechanisms to link and coordinate CC adaptation and
disaster risk reduction policies
2. Conduct a baseline assessment on the status of disaster risk reduction
and related CC adaptation efforts in the country and undertake climate
risk assessments
3. Prepare CC adaptation plans drawing on the Hyogo Framework
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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
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 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
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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;
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A number of key meetings are taking place in Europe.
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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,
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1-4 Sep, Geneva, Switzerland
UN Climate Conference, COP 14,
1-12 Dec, Poznañ, Poland
COP in Copenhagen in
Dec, 2009
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