Press release

The UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) welcomes a move by The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) to add the threats posed by natural and human-induced hazards to its widely-respected country analyses.

African Least Developed Countries and Pacific Islands will be the first to benefit from upgraded early warning systems against weather and climate-related shocks under an action plan outlined at the United Nations climate change conference.

The UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Disaster Risk Reduction, Mr. Robert Glasser, today warned against complacency in the face of the global tsunami threat which is often forgotten in parts of the world that have been affected in the distant past. The first ever World Tsunami Awareness Day is tomorrow, 5 November.

Singapore and the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) have renewed their partnership to strengthen the disaster risk management capacity of Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and other developing countries that are vulnerable to natural disasters and are on the front line of climate change.

The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) and the European Committee of the Regions (CoR) have agreed a five-year plan to support EU cities and regions to take more concerted action to reduce the impact of natural disasters. It specifically wants to increase the number of towns and cities with disaster risk-reduction strategies by 2020.

The UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Disaster Risk Reduction, Mr. Robert Glasser, today marked International Day for Disaster Reduction by recognising five outstanding examples of successful efforts to reduce disaster mortality.

Analysis of twenty years of data on 7,056 disaster events in which 1.35 million people died, shows that earthquakes and tsunamis are the biggest killers overall, followed closely by climate-related disasters, and 90% of disaster deaths occur in low and middle-income countries.

Nominations for the 2017 Sasakawa Award are now being accepted and the judges want to recognize an individual, organization or initiative which has made a substantial contribution towards saving lives and reducing global disaster mortality. The deadline is 31 January 2017.

History is being made this month on climate change and not in a good way. We have broken through the symbolic ceiling of 400 parts per million for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and there seems to be no going back.

A new report issued today shows that eleven years after Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans continues to focus on trying to get its business community to improve on resilience to disasters. Less than half of survey respondents have an emergency plan in place.