Risk Wise

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STATEMENT FROM ACHIM STEINER, UN UNDER-SECRETARY GENERAL

AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, UNITED NATIONS ENVIRONMENT PROGRAMME (UNEP)

From melting glaciers to expanding deserts – these images of environmental change have long captured public attention. With the

threat of global climate change, the environment has moved from casual concern to the forefront of the international agenda. Society

must now address the challenges of adapting to an altered environment while also strengthening efforts to prevent further damages

that will increase human vulnerability. One need look no further than the latest findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate

Change or UNEP’s Global Environment Outlook-4, which describe ever-sobering scenarios likely to play out on a far shorter

timescale than was previously supposed. Patterns of disaster risk are changing, and the critical ecosystems that support community

resilience are being lost at an alarming rate due to human mismanagement of natural resources and changes in climate.

For increases in global average temperature beyond 1.5-2.5°C, major changes in ecosystems are predicted, with consequences for

biodiversity and ecosystem goods and services from water and food supply to storm and flood regulation. In Africa’s Sahel, warmer

and drier conditions have led to a reduced crop-growing season. Up to 600 million people could be at risk of increased water stress

if temperatures rise by 2°C or more. Sea-level rise and unsustainable human development are also contributing to significant losses

of coastal wetlands and mangroves and increasing damage from coastal flooding. Millions of people are projected to be flooded

annually from sea-level rise by the 2080s. Densely-populated and low-lying areas where adaptive capacity is relatively low, and which

already face other challenges such as tropical storms or local coastal subsidence, are especially at risk.

So the invoice for our climate-changing emissions includes an increase in the frequency and extremities of natural hazards.

‘Climate proofing’ economies to minimize vulnerability to future disasters is now crucial. Adaptation costs for climate change are,

however, likely to be far lower than the cost of damage: annual economic losses from extreme events increased tenfold from the

1950s to approximately USD70 billion in 2003, of which natural hazards (floods, fires, storms, drought, earthquakes) accounted for

over 80 per cent of insured losses.

The urgency of reducing disaster risk was already realized in 2005, when governments adopted the

Hyogo Framework for Action

2005-2015: Building the Resilience of Nations and Communities to Disasters

in Kobe, Japan. Now, as the world’s leaders come together

to work towards a new international climate change agenda, it is clear that without a deep and decisive climate regime post-2012

and major efforts in reducing disaster risk, meeting the Millennium Development Goals will be tough.

The Bali Action Plan, which was endorsed at the United Nations Climate Change conference in December 2007, calls for

enhanced action on adaptation through consideration of risk management, risk reduction strategies and means to address loss and

damage associated with climate change impacts as significant elements of climate change adaptation.

It is within this context that the ISDR Partnership for Environment and Disaster Risk Reduction, coordinated by UNEP, has been

formed to advance an integrated approach to climate change adaptation, disaster risk reduction and ecosystem services. The

partnership is an initiative with global reach wherein UN agencies, NGOs and specialist institutes collectively aim to guide, scale-up

and better coordinate environmental efforts in pursuit of disaster risk reduction and sustainable development.

Risk Wise

, the partner publication to the International Disaster Reduction Conference 2008, reflects the voices of a broad range of

actors involved. UNEP is pleased to contribute and encourages policy makers, planners and practitioners to consider carefully the

opportunities presented in this volume and in the conference itself.

Achim Steiner

Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme