GENEVA, Switzerland — The
UN said Wednesday it wanted the whole world covered by weather
disaster early warning systems within five years to protect people from the
worsening impacts of climate change.
اضافة اعلان
A third of the
world’s people, mainly in the least-developed countries and developing small
island states, are without early warning coverage, the UN said, with 60 percent
of people in
Africa wide open to weather catastrophes.
The plan will cost
$1.5 billion — but the UN insisted it would be money well spent compared to the
devastation wrought by meteorological disasters.
“The United
Nations will spearhead new action to ensure every person on Earth is protected
by early warning systems within five years,” UN Secretary-General
Antonio Guterres announced, launching the plan on World Meteorological Day.
Proper early
warning systems — for floods, droughts, heat waves, or storms — allow people to
know that hazardous weather is coming, and set out plans for what governments
and individuals should do to minimize the impacts.
“Each increment of
global heating will further increase the frequency and intensity of extreme
weather events,” said Guterres.
“Early warning
systems save lives. Let us ensure they are working for everyone.”
Return on investment
The UN’s
World Meteorological Organization will present an action plan at
the next UN climate conference, to be held in Egypt in November.
WMO chief
Petteri Taalas said the $1.5 billion required to build weather, water, and climate
early warning services would provide one of the highest rates of return on
investments in climate adaptation.
The organization
believes the investment would save countless lives, protect the most
vulnerable, and make good economic sense.
The WMO said the
number of weather disasters it recorded went up fivefold from 1970 to 2019, due
to climate change and an increased number of extreme weather events, but also
improved monitoring.
“Thanks to better
warnings, the number of lives lost decreased almost three-fold over the same
period,” the organization said.
The
2015 Paris Agreement on climate change, struck at the COP21 summit, called for capping
global warming at well below two degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial
(1850-1900) level, and ideally closer to 1.5 C.
Guterres said it
was vital to limit global temperature rises to 1.5 C as the hotter the planet
gets, the greater the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events.
“Keeping 1.5 alive
requires a 45 percent reduction in global emissions by 2030 to reach carbon
neutrality by mid-century,” he said.
However, carbon
emissions are set to rise by almost 14 percent this decade.
It is also feared
that as countries turn away from Russian oil and gas following the
Kremlin-ordered war in
Ukraine, short-term alternatives will end up becoming
new, long-term deals that lock in fossil fuel dependency, putting the final
nail in the coffin for the 1.5 C target.
Africa gap
One problem stemming from the lack of advanced weather monitoring systems
in Africa is that climate projections are built from sparse information.
While west African
countries have the best early warning coverage on the continent and certain
nations like Kenya and
Morocco have reasonable services, central Africa is
poorly covered.
Mohamed Adow,
founder of the Nairobi-based climate action think-tank Power Shift Africa, told
AFP that this was leading to blind choices in preparing for more extreme
weather events.
“How do you create
early warning systems for extreme weather without the data?” he said.
“Let’s say you build a
meter-high seawall due to sea levels rise. But what if the risk of sea-level
rise in your region is going to be higher?”
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