#Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction

[konradnews]

President Tanaka meets with Mr. Kishore, Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General for Disaster Reduction (UNDRR) ｜ News & Media

On June 18, JICA President Akihiko Tanaka met with Kamal Kishore, Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), at JICA Headquarters. At the beginning of the meeting, President Tanaka congratulated Special Representative Kishore on his appointment and thanked him for his long cooperation with JICA during his previous position as Director…

[disasterriskreductionday]

People-centered early warning systems and preparedness can enable early action to minimize the harm to people, assets and livelihoods.

We need end-to-end and people-centred systems which will stop the spiral of disaster destruction and contribute to a more sustainable, more resilient and more equitable future.

Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction and Head of UNDRR on International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction 2022

[takeoffphilippines]

UNDRR, SM Prime laud women leaders in disaster resilience

SM Prime Holdings (SMPHI) recently announced its support for the global search for women leaders in disaster resilience.

For the second consecutive year, SMPHI is sponsoring Women’s International Network on Disaster Risk Reduction (WIN DRR) Leadership Awards, a flagship program of the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR).

SMPHI Vice President for Corporate Compliance Liza B. Silerio said that the support is aligned with the company’s drive to recognize women’s leadership in disaster risk reduction. “This is important in inspiring other women to fully and effectively participate in promoting gender equality and empowerment while building our collective resilience.”

UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction Mami Mizutori expressed gratitude for the support, stating, “The awards highlight the key role of women as leaders and agents of change in building resilience and actively participating in the creation and implementation of DRR strategies, policies, plans, and programs in their regions. Their stories reflect the diversity of solutions required to meet the converging challenges of accelerating climate change and disasters in the region.”

“We look forward to continued collaboration with SM in our DRR agenda,” Secretary General Mizutori added.

The WIN DRR Excellence Awards 2022  sponsored by SM Prime has 15 finalists shortlisted from 420 nominations received across 24 countries in the Asia-Pacific. The winner will be announced at the Asia Pacific Ministerial Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction Brisbane on 21 September 2022. US$10,000 will be awarded to an individual woman who has achieved exceptional professional success in DRR. 

The WIN DRR partnership is consistent with SM Prime Holdings’ social commitment to women's empowerment, resilience, good health, and well-being of women. The company’s corporate social responsibility arm, SM Cares, supports programs that advance these causes.  

The Women's International Network on Disaster Risk Reduction (WIN DRR) is a professional network to support women working in disaster risk reduction, in all their diversity. Its overall goal is to empower women to attain leadership and enhance their role in decision-making in disaster risk reduction in Asia-Pacific. The WIN DRR Philippine Network is powered by SM Prime and Asia Pacific College.

Earlier this year, SM Prime through its SM CARES, partnered with UNDRR in celebrating women's empowerment through a webinar on the role of women in disaster resilience. In her keynote message, Mizutori emphasized that “women’s equal participation and leadership in public life including disaster risk reduction is important and it is also essential to reducing disaster risk in achieving the United Nations sustainable development goals.”

_________________

ABOUT SM PRIME HOLDINGS

SM Prime, one of the leading integrated property developers in Southeast Asia, remains committed to its role as a catalyst for economic growth, delivering innovative and sustainable lifestyle cities, thereby enriching the quality of life of millions of people. Sustainability and Disaster Risk Reduction and Resilience form part of SM Prime's core business strategies. It ensures that its risk-informed investments catalyze sustainable development and positive change in the communities where it operates.

For more information on SM Prime Holdings and its other programs for disaster preparedness, visit its website at www.smprime.com.

–

📧 If you wish to send an invite and feature your province/company brand/event; Just ask the author of this vlog, email us at team.takeoffph@gmail.com

Follow our Social Media Accounts: Facebook Fan Page: https://www.facebook.com/TakeOffPHBlog

Instagram/Twitter: @takeoff_ph

Website: https://takeoffphilippines.com

Subscribe to our YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/TakeOffPhilippines

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this Common Dreams/EcoWatch story:

A "staggering" new warning from a top United Nations official that climate crisis-related disasters are now occurring at the rate of one per week, with developing nations disproportionately at risk, provoked calls for immediate global action to combat the human-caused climate emergency.

The warning came in an interview with The Guardian, which reported Sunday:

Catastrophes such as cyclones Idai and Kenneth in Mozambique and the drought afflicting India make headlines around the world. But large numbers of "lower impact events" that are causing death, displacement, and suffering are occurring much faster than predicted, said Mami Mizutori, the U.N. secretary-general's special representative on disaster risk reduction. "This is not about the future, this is about today." This means that adapting to the climate crisis could no longer be seen as a long-term problem, but one that needed investment now, she said. "People need to talk more about adaptation and resilience."

"We talk about a climate emergency and a climate crisis, but if we cannot confront this [issue of adapting to the effects] we will not survive," Mizutori added. "We need to look at the risks of not investing in resilience."

[currentclimate]

Climate crisis disasters are happening at the rate of one a week, though most draw little international attention and work is urgently needed to prepare developing countries for the profound impacts, the UN has warned.

Catastrophes such as cyclones Idai and Kenneth in Mozambique and the drought afflicting India make headlines around the world. But large numbers of “lower impact events” that are causing death, displacement and suffering are occurring much faster than predicted, said Mami Mizutori, the UN secretary-general’s special representative on disaster risk reduction. “This is not about the future, this is about today.”

[accidental-ambience]

Catastrophes such as cyclones Idai and Kenneth in Mozambique and the drought afflicting India make headlines around the world. But large numbers of “lower impact events” that are causing death, displacement and suffering are occurring much faster than predicted, said Mami Mizutori, the UN secretary-general’s special representative on disaster risk reduction. “This is not about the future, this is about today.”

“This is not about the future, this is about today.”

[disillusioned41]

Climate crisis disasters are happening at the rate of one a week, though most draw little international attention and work is urgently needed to prepare developing countries for the profound impacts, the UN has warned.

Catastrophes such as cyclones Idai and Kenneth in Mozambique and the drought afflicting India make headlines around the world. But large numbers of “lower impact events” that are causing death, displacement and suffering are occurring much faster than predicted, said Mami Mizutori, the UN secretary-general’s special representative on disaster risk reduction. “This is not about the future, this is about today.”

This means that adapting to the climate crisis could no longer be seen as a long-term problem, but one that needed investment now, she said. “People need to talk more about adaptation and resilience.”

[myserendipities]

Climate crisis disasters are happening at the rate of one a week, though most draw little international attention and work is urgently needed to prepare developing countries for the profound impacts, the UN has warned. Catastrophes such as cyclones Idai and Kenneth in Mozambique and the drought afflicting India make headlines around the world. But large numbers of “lower impact events” that are causing death, displacement and suffering are occurring much faster than predicted, said Mami Mizutori, the UN secretary-general’s special representative on disaster risk reduction. “This is not about the future, this is about today.” This means that adapting to the climate crisis could no longer be seen as a long-term problem, but one that needed investment now, she said. “People need to talk more about adaptation and resilience.” Estimates put the cost of climate-related disasters at $520bn a year, while the additional cost of building infrastructure that is resistant to the effects of global heating is only about 3%, or $2.7tn in total over the next 20 years. Mizutori said: “This is not a lot of money [in the context of infrastructure spending], but investors have not been doing enough. Resilience needs to become a commodity that people will pay for.” That would mean normalising the standards for new infrastructure, such as housing, road and rail networks, factories, power and water supply networks, so that they were less vulnerable to the effects of floods, droughts, storms and extreme weather.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jul/07/one-climate-crisis-disaster-happening-every-week-un-warns

[baliwakenews]

KTT Bencana PBB, GPDRR ke-7 Hasilkan Agenda Bali

KTT Bencana PBB, GPDRR ke-7 Hasilkan Agenda Bali

Nusa Dua, baliwakenews.com Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction (GPDRR) ke-7, yang dilaksanakan di BNDCC, Nusa Dua, Badung, merupakan wake-up call untuk meningkatkan tindakan pencegahan dan menghentikan spiral peningkatan dampak dan risiko bencana. Mami Mizutori, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction, UNDRR dalam konfrensi pers usai penutupan GPDRR…

[jasonhaw]

Demystifying the 35 B health budget cut for 2019

The amount is substantial, representing a decrease by a third from 2018 (when it received 106 B).

The cuts have received substantial criticism, even from the President’s own allies - most notably, the House Appropriations Committee Chairman and Davao City First District Representative Karlo Nograles. News articles about the cuts tell us little about where the cuts are and what it actually means for health service delivery. At best, the articles mention deep cuts to the Health Facility Enhancement Program (HFEP) and the health human resources deployment programs (such as the Doctors to the Barrios (DTTB) Program).

The cuts are contrary to the government’s populist agenda. This is the government that passed free tuition for all public universities, a comprehensive tax reform law that lowered personal income tax, and free irrigation to farmers owning less than 8 hectares of land. The House version of the Universal Health Coverage (UHC) Bill, the country’s most ambitious health reform legislation ever, passed with an overwhelming majority (222-7-0), and everyone is hopeful that the Senate would pass their version soon. Duterte also urged Congress to pass the UHC Bill immediately in his last State of the Nation Address. 

How does one reconcile Duterte’s promises of universal health coverage and the budget cuts to the Department of Health (DOH)? The situation is definitely more nuanced than what is reported in the media, and publicly available information can readily explain these cuts.

We start by looking closely at the Department of Budget and Management’s (DBM) National Expenditure Program (NEP). The NEP is the annual budget document prepared by the executive branch and serves as the starting point for deliberations of the budget, officially known as the General Appropriations Act (GAA), in Congress. The full documents are available in the DBM website.

The DOH NEP is broken down into 8 programs, the names of which are not known to most people (the program classifications are not intuitive - what most people know are the subprogams to these general program categories). Without adjusting for inflation, we can summarize the percent changes of the appropriations per program from 2018 to 2019.

Five out of the eight programs actually received significant increases. Most notable increases are in three programs: the Epidemiology and Surveillance Program, Health Emergency Management Program, and the Social Health Protection Program.

The Epidemiology and Surveillance Program has a five-fold increase because of the 217 M special allocation for the surveillance of the 800,000-plus children who were vaccinated with Dengvaxia (see DBM’s official release here, page 26). This is the government’s guarantee that resources will be allocated to properly monitor the health outcomes of these children.

The Health Emergency Management Program is receiving an additional 500 M as a Quick Response Fund (QRF). QRFs are standby funds that can readily be used by government agencies whenever a disaster strikes, and the disbursement does not require approval by the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC). Five agencies are already receiving QRFs, and in 2019, the national government wants to add DOH to its list of recipients. After all, DOH needs to respond when natural and man-made disasters strike, particularly health-specific events like epidemics.

The Social Health Protection Program is a discretionary fund that DOH uses in providing direct financial assistance to indigent patients, on top of the support that the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) already guarantees as part of its No Balance Billing (NBB) scheme, and support from other agencies such as the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) and Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD). The fund will receive an additional 1 B from 2018.

The budget cuts mentioned in news articles pertain specifically to the Health Systems Strengthening Program. Under this program are both HFEP and the human health resources deployment programs.

HFEP is a DOH program aimed at building and rehabilitating health facilities both managed by the national government and local government units (LGUs) (Unlike public schools, management of health facilities are devolved to LGUs, save for around 70 public teaching hospitals). The fund received substantial increases upon the passage of the Sin Tax Law in 2012. While 80% of the 85% of the sin tax revenues earmarked for health are being used to subsidize the PhilHealth premiums of indigent families, the remainder is appended to the DOH budget. A simple time trend analysis of the budget obligations of HFEP shows how rapid the increases in allocation were:

In 2019, HFEP is virtually eliminated - only 50 M as compared to the 30 B it received in 2018. There are two related reasons for this drastic cut. First, the spending performance of HFEP has been poor. DBM has been explicit about its criticism of HFEP (a detailed analysis can be found here). As a result, DOH’s budget utilization rate (BUR) has always been less than 90%, far lower than the 100% target set by DBM. Second, the government wants to shift from obligation-based budgeting to cash-based budgeting for 2019. This shift requires appropriations that are only “shovel-ready,” meaning that a government agency should be ready to disburse the funds in the same year that they are appropriated. In obligation-based budgeting, funds can be disbursed for up to two years after it was appropriated, resulting to delays in disbursement and chronic underspending of many government agencies. As a result, DBM wants DOH to fulfill all of its disbursements in previous appropriations and implement the corresponding projects, before it will propose to Congress for another set of appropriations. Assuming DOH does this and DBM keeps its word, this budget cut is only temporary.

The issue of health human resource deployment programs has something to do with the way the budget has been appropriated in previous years. A closer look at the 2018 vs. 2019 budget for this particular subprogram presents a curious case:

Personnel services (PS) remained the same between 2018 and 2019, and the cuts are isolated in the maintenance and other operating expenses (MOOE). Since this is a program that largely involves salaries to health professionals, why is the MOOE share much larger? This is because most allied health professionals like nurses are not counted as personnel. They are counted as contractual employees or job orders, or more commonly known as “endo.” Last May, the President signed Executive Order 51, effectively ending the practice of “endo” in all government agencies. This means that government agencies must either provide security of tenure to previously contractual staff or refuse to hire contractual employees again. The DOH took the latter approach, citing concerns about the civil service eligibility of most allied health professionals. This was mentioned explicitly by Health Secretary Francisco Duque III during the DOH budget interpellations at the House last September 3. DOH is now proposing a compromise solution, where these health professionals will still be considered contractual employees but will be provided government-mandated benefits so that their line item now becomes PS instead of MOOE.

As of posting this article, the 2019 GAA is still being deliberated. This means that the final budget cuts to DOH are still unknown, but understanding how the budget was proposed originally in the NEP gives us a perspective on how the government is trying to be more effective in its duties. While this budget cut can easily shock anyone at first glance, it is important for us to understand how much more nuanced the situation is, and that we can use publicly available sources to paint a clearer picture of the context behind this.

Links to sources and further reading are cited in-text. Leave me a message on my social media sites or here in my blog if you have any comments, questions or clarifications. Share with the rest of your network and start a discussion to keep our government in check.

[sciencespies]

UN report warns there's a different type of 'pandemic' coming for the world

https://sciencespies.com/environment/un-report-warns-theres-a-different-type-of-pandemic-coming-for-the-world/

UN report warns there's a different type of 'pandemic' coming for the world

Thousands of years of history tell us drought is nothing new. Sometimes we prevail. Often we don’t.

A bleak look into the future tells us we’ve seen nothing yet, with a mix of shifting climates, poor water management practices, and growing population densities promising a ‘pandemic‘ of catastrophic droughts awaits.

The UN’s Special Report on Drought 2021 details the risks we face in coming years as a result of reduced rainfall in key spots around the world, exploring the drivers behind drought and the variety of measures we all take to cope with water shortage.

The fact global warming is redistributing our water is already a grim reality many around the world are forced to deal with.

“With human-induced climate change, drought frequency and severity have already increased in some – often already water-scarce – regions of the globe,” the authors write in the report.

“As the world moves seemingly inexorably towards global average temperatures 2°C warmer than pre-industrial levels, drought impacts are intensifying and are predicted to worsen in many regions, particularly within business-as-usual scenarios.”

At least 1.5 billion people around the world have been affected by drought over the past two decades, costing economies more than $124 billion.

As the authors point out, there’s usually a gap between reported losses and actual impacts, meaning figures like these should be taken as conservative at best. Not to mention the fact estimates don’t even take into account the economies of developing nations.

Somewhat ironically, it’s developing nations and remote regions that first come to mind when we think about severe drought.

Yet nearly a fifth of the world’s population live in an area potentially at risk of water scarcity. By the end of the century, we can expect most countries to be touched by drought in some way.

Reports predicting the extent of increasing risks of water shortages in a future ravaged by a climate crisis have become commonplace. Omens of drought barely qualify as news these days.

But given we know all this – given we know how devastating drought can be, and that so many of us face a future of dry spells – why aren’t we better at managing it?

In an attempt to come up with an answer, the UN report assembled a number of case studies detailing ‘lived experiences’ of drought to highlight who in the community will be most affected by frequent periods of water stress.

Empowering those involved with agriculture is an obvious first step. But anybody with a need for a healthy aquatic environment, whether operating in tourism, transport, hydroelectricity, or fishing, has a stake in efficient water management.

Based on experiences gathered in these cases, it’s clear that the politics on water aren’t so much an issue with poor awareness, but a problem with bad memory.

“Current risk management and governance mechanisms and approaches addressing drought are being overwhelmed by the increasingly systemic nature of drought risk,” the report states.

“The case studies describe action in policy development, review and restructure when droughts are severe, and inaction when droughts are no longer evident.”

Nobody wants to think about the next drought when the rains come, so it’s hardly surprising that most political approaches are reactive, as opposed to proactive.

The UN secretary general’s special representative for disaster risk reduction, Mami Mizutori, is quick to compare future water shortages with a global disaster we don’t need to imagine.

“Drought is on the verge of becoming the next pandemic and there is no vaccine to cure it,” quotes The Guardian’s Fiona Harvey.

Mizutori’s analogy with COVID-19 should resonate. Social inequality, lack of preparation, and difficulty adapting to novel risks have only compounded what is effectively a challenge we’ve faced frequently in the past.

But just as a healthy immune system benefits from a long-term memory of past illness, our global community can’t afford to forget the communities that faded from history for want of reliable access to fresh water.

Read the Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction: Special Report on Drought 2021 here.

#Environment

[phgq]

Jalad calls for greater community role in disaster risk reduction

#PHnews: Jalad calls for greater community role in disaster risk reduction

MANILA – As the world observes the International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction (IDDRR) on Tuesday, a ranking government official called for greater community participation in disaster risk reduction exercises to mitigate the effects of natural and man-made calamities.

"The Office of Civil Defense (OCD) and the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) highly recognize this observance which calls for good disaster risk governance," NDRRMC executive director and OCD administrator Ricardo Jalad said in a statement.

IDDRR is observed every October 13 starting in 1989 following a call by the United Nations General Assembly for a day to promote a global culture of risk-awareness and disaster reduction.

"Our commitment to advance policies and programs to reduce the numbers of disaster-affected people continues likewise our call for community engagement in these efforts," Jalad said.

The observance of IDDRR focuses on how people and communities around the world are taking measures to reduce their exposure to disasters.

IDDRR 2020's theme is focused on disaster risk governance.

"This year's International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction is all about governance. You can measure good disaster risk governance in lives saved, reduced numbers of disaster-affected people, and reduced economic losses. Covid-19 and the climate emergency are telling us we need a clear vision, plans, and competent, empowered institutions acting on scientific evidence for public good," UN Secretary General's Special Representative for Disaster Risk Reduction Mami Mizutori said in a statement released by the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR).

She also emphasized the significance of implementing good strategies in different areas for disaster risk reduction. (PNA)

***

References:

* Philippine News Agency. "Jalad calls for greater community role in disaster risk reduction." Philippine News Agency. https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1118310 (accessed October 13, 2020 at 06:14PM UTC+14).

* Philippine News Agency. "Jalad calls for greater community role in disaster risk reduction." Archive Today. https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1118310 (archived).

[stevemaclellan]

“This is not about the future, this is about today,” said Mami Mizutori, the UN secretary general’s special representative on disaster risk reduction. Part of the problem is that, apart from high-profile events like the twin cyclones that hit Mozambique and the killer drought in India, most of the “lower-impact events” causing death, displacement, and suffering around the world generate few headlines—even though their frequency is growing much faster than scientists predicted.

[u4u-voice]

UN agency praises India on minimising loss of life from Cyclone Fani

UNITED NATIONS: The UN agency for disaster reduction has commended the Indian Meteorological Department’s “almost pinpoint accuracy” of early warnings that helped authorities conduct a well-targeted evacuation plan and minimise the loss of life as extremely severe cyclonic storm Fani made landfall near the coastal city of Puri. The powerful cyclone, strongest to hit India in 20 years, made landfall at around 8 AM in India’s eastern state of Odisha, killing at least eight people. Large areas in the seaside pilgrim town of Puri and other places were submerged as heavy rains battered the entire coastal belt of the state affecting about 11 lakh people. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has classified Fani as an “extremely severe cyclonic storm”. UN agencies are monitoring Fani’s movements closely and taking measures to protect families living in refugee camps in Bangladesh, which is on alert. The Cyclone lashed the coast with maximum wind speeds of up to 175 kilometres per hour, heavy rainfall and coastal flooding, with 28 million people living along the route of the massive storm. “India’s zero casualty approach to managing extreme weather events is a major contribution to the implementation of the #SendaiFramework and the reduction of loss of life from such events,” Mami Mizutori, the Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General (SRSG) for Disaster Risk Reduction, and head of the Geneva-based UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR), said. Mizutori was referring to the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030, the first major agreement of the post-2015 development agenda. It is a 15-year, voluntary, non-binding agreement which recognises that the state has the primary role to reduce disaster risk but that responsibility should be shared with other stakeholders including the local government, the private sector and other stakeholders. Highlighting the zero-casualty cyclone preparedness policy of the Indian government, a spokesperson for UNISDR, Denis McClean said: “the almost pinpoint accuracy of the early warnings from the Indian Meteorological Department had enabled the authorities to conduct a well-targeted evacuation plan, which had involved moving more than one million people into storm shelters”. UNISDR also tweeted about the advisory distributed by India’s National Disaster Management Authority and local authorities days before Fani made landfall in an effort to minimise loss of life and injury. Local authorities are accommodating evacuees in over 4,000 shelters, including 880 specially designed to withstand cyclones. “Schools were shut, airports closed and transport suspended, and although damage to infrastructure was expected to be severe, there were no reports of any deaths,” McClean said. According to preliminary reports, eight people have been killed due to the cyclone, which has the potential to cause widespread loss of life. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric told reporters that the UN humanitarian agencies in India have met ahead of the storm’s arrival to take stock of preparedness measures. With Fani threatening devastation in India and Mozambique still reeling from Cyclone Idai, one of the worst tropical cyclones, UNICEF raised alarm about impact of climate change on children. The UN children’s agency said the cyclone currently hammering India and the back-to-back cyclones that tore through Mozambique in March and April have caused serious damage to the lives of thousands of children. They should be an urgent wake-up call to world leaders on the serious risks that extreme weather events pose to the lives of children. In Odisha, 28 million people, including 10 million children, are in the path of Cyclone Fani, UNICEF said. “Children will bear the brunt of these disasters,” said Gautam Narasimhan, UNICEF Senior Adviser on Climate Change. He said climate change is linked to rising sea levels and the increase in rainfall associated with cyclones, causing more devastation in coastal but also inland areas. “In the short term, the most vulnerable children are at the risk of drowning and landslides, deadly diseases including cholera and malaria, malnutrition from reduced agricultural production, and psychological trauma – all of which are compounded when health centers and schools are impacted,” he said. Narasimhan warned that in the long term, cycles of poverty can linger for years and limit the capacity of families and communities to adapt to climate change and to reduce the risk of disasters. According to the World Metereological Organization (WMO), the forecast on Friday was that Cyclone Fani “would move north-northeast towards Bangladesh where there were concerns about the effects of potential coastal flooding”. World Meteorological Organization spokesperson Clare Nullis said the impact the cyclone is expected to be less severe in areas such as Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar which is home to the world’s largest refugee camp, populated mainly by Rohingyas who have fled Myanmar. Meanwhile, Americares, a health-focused relief and development organization, said its India arm Americares India is preparing to deliver medicine and relief supplies to assist survivors, including tarps, water cans and water purification tablets for up to 3,000 families. Americares India Managing Director Shripad Desai said: “We anticipate thousands of families will need shelter and medical care in the coming days”. (AGENCIES) Read the full article

[coachlydia]

UN Warns of More Severe Disasters If World Leaders Do Not Heed Climate Risk

The hurricanes and wildfires that have severely damaged large areas of the U.S. in recent weeks have had no impact on President Donald Trump's determination to ignore the perils of climate change and support the coalindustry.

In a deliberate denial of mainstream science, the Trump administration has issued a strategic four-year plan for the U.S. Environment Protection Agency that does not once mention "greenhouse gas emissions," "carbon dioxide" or "climate change" in its 48 pages.

Rachel Cleetus, lead economist and climate policy manager of the Union of Concerned Scientists, described this as "stunning" in its ignorance. "This was not an oversight," she said. "This is a deliberate strategy by this administration."

Trump effect

However, President Trump's repudiation in June of the 2015 Paris agreement designed to combat global warming, and his refusal to acknowledge any connection between recent extreme weather events and climate change, seems to have made the world even more determined to tackle the issue.

The acid test will be the progress that is made in November at the annual meeting of the parties for the Climate Change Conference in Bonn, Germany, hosted by Fiji, one of the small island states expected to be most affected by sea-level rise and more frequent storms.

Ahead of the conference, three of the UN's most senior climate change figures have issued a statement urging world leaders to see the recent spate of disasters as a "shocking sign of things to come."

In a joint statement, Achim Steiner, administrator of the United Nations Development Programme, Patricia Espinosa, executive secretary of the UN Framework Climate Change Convention and Robert Glasser, the UN secretary-general's special representative for disaster risk reduction and head of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, said the events of the last few months were a reminder that climate change threatens more frequent and severe disasters such as those just witnessed.

The three officials emphasize that there have been many more extreme weather events that have not received the publicity given to the hurricanes in the Caribbean and the U.S.

"The record floods across Bangladesh, India and Nepal have made life miserable for some 40 million people," they said. "More than 1,200 people have died and many people have lost their homes, crops have been destroyed, and many workplaces have been inundated. Meanwhile, in Africa, over the last 18 months 20 countries have declared drought emergencies, with major displacement taking place across the Horn of Africa.

"For those countries that are least developed the impact of disasters can be severe, stripping away livelihoods and progress on health and education; for developed and middle-income countries the economic losses from infrastructure alone can be massive.

"During the last two years over 40 million people, mainly in countries which contribute least to global warming, were forced either permanently or temporarily from their homes by disasters."

The three officials did not mention the Trump administration's refusal to accept basic science, but describe the rising sea levels of 85 millimeters (3.34 inches) in the last 25 years and the potential catastrophic storm damage that coastal areas face as a result.

Clear consensus

"There is clear consensus," they added. "Rising temperatures are increasing the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere, leading to more intense rainfall and flooding in some places, and drought in others.

"Rising and warming seas are contributing to the intensity of tropical storms worldwide. We will continue to live with the abnormal and often unforeseen consequences of existing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, for many, many years to come."

They pointed out that the cost of adaptation to climate change will be far cheaper than the repair bill if no action is taken.

"It is critical to remember that the long-term reduction of emissions is THE most important risk reduction tactic we have, and we must deliver on that ambition," they wrote.

The three officials concluded, "The November UN Climate Conference in Bonn provides an opportunity to not only accelerate emission reductions but to also boost the serious work of ensuring that the management of climate risk is integrated into disaster risk management. Poverty, rapid urbanization, poor land use, ecosystems decline and other risk factors will amplify the impacts of climate change."

source:climate news network

http://ift.tt/2yw4mbg from Blogger http://ift.tt/2gn4EdA via Climate Change Action Group

[afroinsider]

Mozambique: Let's Seize the Opportunity for Resilience in Storm-Hit Mozambique

Mozambique: Let’s Seize the Opportunity for Resilience in Storm-Hit Mozambique

opinionBy Mami Mizutori | Undrr

The world is an increasingly fragile place, especially for countries like Mozambique which lack resources to adapt to climate change

Mami Mizutori is the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Disaster Risk Reduction and head of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction.

Mozambique and the city of Beira do not want to go down in history as the beginning…