Climate Change Resilience
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change launched its Special Report on Managing Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (SREX) on 26th March of 2012. This report has significant implications for the climate change adaptation agenda in the Pacific and globally, as well as on disaster risk management and development agendas in general.The SREX Report confirms and extends earlier assessments provided in the Assessment Report 4 that climate has changed, is changing and will continue to change over the next century, although there is a varying degree of confidence around the global and regional assessments of the intensity and direction of change in individual climate and weather extremes, such as precipitation, drought, temperature, cyclones and sea level rise. It looks at how climatic, environmental and human factors combine to create disasters and other impacts on society, and what we can do to reduce their risks.
The report examines adaptation to climate change from the perspective of not only what climate science tells us about the state of global warming and its effects on weather and climate, but also considers the implications of the interactions between climate extremes, exposure and vulnerability, in determining disaster risks and for disaster risk management in a changing climate.
The report emphasises that actions ranging from incremental improvements in governance and technology to more transformational changes are essential for reducing risk from climate extremes, and that addressing current and projected risks from climate extremes is integral to the pursuit of sustainable development during this century of climate change.
At the launch of the SREX Summary for Policy Makers, Dr Rajendra Pachauri, Chair of IPCC said that this report provides "insights into how disaster risk management and adaption may assist vulnerable communities to better cope with a changing climate in a world of inequalities".
The report is also considered to be ground breaking, according to the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction, Margareta Wahlström, as it draws on researchers from across many different disciplines, studying climate science, climate impacts, disaster risk management and adaptation to climate change.
The full report can be downloaded from http://ipcc-wg2.gov/SREX/report/full-report/
For more information you may contact Dr Padma Narsey Lal, SREX's Chapter 6 co-coordinating lead author,
[email protected]