UNDRR News

The governments of Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Luxembourg and The Netherlands have agreed to give more than US$80 million to equip up to 80 countries with better climate risk early warning systems.

The leader of Kiribati, one of the Pacific island nations most vulnerable to rising sea levels, says the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction can help protect the existence of his threatened country.

Leaders of the world’s most climate fragile states have issued a call for full decarbonisation of the world economy, 100% renewable energy by 2050, and zero emissions by 2050 to keep the world on track for below 1.5°C warming and to reduce disaster risk.

The veteran campaigner and advocate, Senator Loren Legarda, has been recognized at the Paris UN Climate Conference, COP21, as a Global Champion for Resilience.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today called for a shift from disaster risk to resilience as he highlighted that “three out of four humanitarian disasters are now climate-related.”

Alasdair Hainsworth’s main claim to popular fame may be his decision to add the colour purple to the palette of the Australian Bureau of Meteorology to capture the possibility of temperatures reaching 50°C or more in the heatwave of 2013.

The Americas are paying a high price as one of the worst El Niños on record continues to strengthen. The World Meteorological Organization this week singled out “considerable concern” about the impact of El Niño on the Amazon basin in the context of long-term climate change.

A new report issued today by the UN, “The Human Cost of Weather Related Disasters”, shows that over the last twenty years, 90% of major disasters have been caused by 6,457 recorded floods, storms, heatwaves, droughts and other weather-related events.

Asia is making strides towards setting down a regional package of measures to implement the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction.

A senior disaster management advisor to the Prime Minister of India believes the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 will help guide the country as it faces up to more frequent occurrences of extreme weather.