According to the United Nations, finding ways to alert communities to impending climate disasters can multiply the return on investment by preventing deaths and injuries.
These methods can range from satellites that better predict extreme weather events, to location-based text messaging systems that can warn at-risk communities of impending storms, floods, wildfires, and other extreme events.
“Early warning systems are a proven and feasible way to help people adapt to climate change…saving lives and livelihoods in the event of extreme weather events such as storms and storms. increasingly intense and frequent flooding,” UN officials said this week. “And smart, innovative technologies are playing an increasingly important role in making them effective.”
In fact, early warning systems are among the most cost-effective adaptation tools for mitigating deaths and injuries from climate-related disasters around the world, according to the Technology Executive Committee of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. climate changes.
The return on investment calculation is based on a “in-depth” discussion last month between UN officials and climate actors in Rio de Janeiro, and it follows UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ March 2022 directive that all of the world’s population has access to disaster early warning systems by 2027.
Over the past decade, climate-related disasters have killed tens of thousands of people and cost billions of dollars.
A January report by UK nonprofit Christian Aid estimated that the world’s 10 biggest natural disasters in 2022 had an economic cost of more than $168 billion; Hurricane Ian alone cost $100 billion.
Deaths and displacement, however, were much higher in developing countries. Christian Aid’s analysis showed that 10 disasters last year claimed the lives of at least 3,275 people and displaced tens of millions more.
Extreme flooding caused by monsoon rains in Pakistan, for example, has contributed to the death of nearly 1,740 people and driven 7 million from their homes, Christian Aid has found.
A post-disaster scientific assessment found that climate change contributed to the severity of rains and floods (climate wire, September 16, 2022). He also noted that Pakistan had invested in early warning technologies through a $120 million World Bank grant in 2016 to help Sindh province.
UN officials said 7 million people in the province are now receiving more accurate and timely alert notifications. But the post-flood science report noted that “the ‘flash’ nature of much of the [2022] floods and large amounts of water may also have significantly limited the effectiveness of any early warning, even if the systems were in place.
A recent meeting of the United Nations Technology Executive Committee identified five innovations that could improve early warning systems. They include artificial intelligence “to predict collective behavior before and during emergencies, allowing [for] better scheduling and location-based telephony and texting capabilities.
In addition, the officials recommended greater use of the “internet of things” to “improve the effectiveness of early warning systems in human settlements for public and private buildings”. An excellent example of such a system is in South Africa, where a networked electronic alarm system reduces the risk of wildfires by providing live monitoring and text alerts to residents.
Reprinted from E&E News courtesy of POLITICO, LLC. Copyright 2023. E&E News provides essential information for energy and environmental professionals.