UNDRR News

Despite the goal set at the Cancun climate talks last year to stabilize the global average temperature increase at 2°C, a forthcoming report of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) 'Environmental Outlook to 2050' warns that global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions continue to increase.

Following agreement on the Summary for Policymakers, the authors of the 800-page Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (SREX) will be busy between now and the end of the year reconciling the changes agreed by IPCC member governments to the Summary with the text of the nine final chapters which will make up the SREX when it is published early next year.

Following a three-day visit to Timor-Leste, the top UN disaster risk reduction official, Margareta Wahlström, said environmental degradation and disasters could threaten a visionary development strategy and budget presented by the Government to the Parliament.

The League of Arab States (LAS) and UNISDR move one step closer to a plan of action on disaster risk reduction for the Arab region. The action plan is expected to be endorsed at the first-ever Regional Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction in the Arab region planned for 2012.

It was over three years in the making but after one final all-night negotiation in Kampala last Friday, the IPCC Summary for Policymakers of the Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (SREX) was agreed by the member governments clearing the way for the publication of the full report early next year.

The municipality of Kristianstad in Southern Sweden, one of over a thousand cities that have now joined UNISDR’s World Disaster Reduction Campaign (2010-2015) - Making Cities Resilient: "My city is getting ready" was recently awarded role model status by UNISDR.

UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, has highlighted disaster risk reduction as a major area where the UN and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) can work together to assist vulnerable people.

The Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has put disaster risk reduction at the centre of the climate change debate with the weekend publication of its Summary for Policymakers of the Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (IPCC SREX).

Today 36 more cities in the Philippines signed up to UNISDR’s ‘Making Cities Resilient Campaign: My City is Getting Ready!’ They joined the Campaign during the 3rd League of Cities of the Philippines (LCP) Global Convention and Exposition in Manila on the theme of Bridging Cities, Transforming Lives.

The Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction, Margareta Wahlström, today issued the following statement welcoming the approval in Kampala, Uganda, by the IPCC member States of the Summary for Policy Makers of the Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (SREX).