IPCC_Managing Risks of Extreme Events.pdf - Climate Access

National Systems for Managing the Risks from Climate Extremes and DisastersChapter 6FAQ 6.1 | What can a government do to better prepare its people for changingclimate-related disaster risks?In almost all countries, governments create the enabling environment of policies, regulations, institutional arrangements, and coordinationmechanisms to guide and support the efforts of all agencies and stakeholders involved in managing disaster risks at different scales.Such risks are increasing and changing because of population growth, migration, climate change, and a range of other factors. Nationalsystems for managing disaster risk need to act on these changes in order to build resilience in the short and long term. Accordingly, thefollowing measures can be considered:• Generate and communicate robust information about the dynamic nature of disaster risk: Given the dynamic and changingnature of disaster risks in the context of climate change, regular updates on changes in the level of risk will further strengthen suchsystems if the information is acted upon. Not possessing information about changing disaster risks or not integrating the informationinto decisions about longer-term investments can lead to increases in the exposure and vulnerability of people and assets and mayincrease risk over time. An example could be non-drought-tolerant monoculture agriculture in an area likely to experience increasedfrequency and/or longer durations of drought conditions, or water harvesting tanks installed in houses or communities that lack thecapacity to supply water during longer periods of drought, or roads not raised sufficiently above future projected flood levels.Knowledge about dynamic risks can be generated from scientific observations and models, combined with analysis of patterns ofvulnerability and exposure and from the experiences of local communities (see Section 6.5.1).• Even without robust information, consider ‘no orlow regrets’ strategies, including ecosystem-basedadaptation: Countries have started to adopt ‘no or lowregrets’ strategies that generate short-term benefits aswell as help to prepare for projected changes in disasterrisks, even when robust information is not available (seeSection 6.3.1). Included in these ‘no or low regrets’strategies are ecosystem-based strategies that not onlyhelp reduce current vulnerabilities and exposure tohazards under a range of climatic conditions, but alsoproduce other co-benefits such as improved livelihoodsand poverty reduction that help reduce vulnerability toprojected changes in climate. Table 6-5, a considerablyreduced version of Table 6-1, shows a summary of theseoptions. Such ‘no or low regrets’ practices also tend toinclude measures to tackle the underlying drivers ofdisaster risk and are effective irrespective of projectedchanges in extremes of weather or climate (see Section6.5.2). Where better information is available, this can bemainstreamed across line ministries and other agenciesto shape practices that help to build resilience toprojected changes in disaster risk over the longer term.These are highlighted in the right-hand column ofTable 6-5.Table 6-5 | Range of practices to demonstrate comparison between ‘no or low regrets’measures and those integrating projected changes in disaster risk.‘No or low regrets’ practiceswith demonstrated evidence ofhaving integrated observedtrends in disaster risks to reducethe effects of disasters• Effective early warning systems andemergency preparedness (very highconfidence)• Integrated water resource management(high confidence)• Rehabilitation of degraded coastal andterrestrial ecosystems (high confidence)• Robust building codes and standardsreflecting knowledge of current disasterrisks (high confidence)• Ecosystem-based/nature-basedinvestments, including ecosystemconservation measures (high confidence)• Micro-insurance, including weatherindexedinsurance (medium confidence)• Vulnerability-reducing measures such aspro-poor economic and humandevelopment, through for exampleimproved social services and protection,employment, wealth creation (very highconfidence)Practices that enhanceresilience to projected changesin disaster risk• Crop improvement for drought toleranceand adaptive agricultural practices,including responses to enhancedweather and climate prediction services(high confidence)• Integrated coastal zone managementintegrating projections of sea level riskand weather/climate extremes (mediumconfidence)• National water policy frameworks andwater supply infrastructures,incorporating future climate extremesand demand projections (medium-highconfidence)• Strengthened and enforced buildingcodes, standards for changed climateextremes (medium confidence)•Advances in human development andpoverty reduction, through, for example,social protection, employment, andwealth creation measures, takingfuture exposure to weather and climateextremes into account (very highconfidence)Continued next pagedisaster risks have been accounted for, the robustness of future projectionsof risk is also uncertain (Bouwer, 2010).Furthermore, many of the economic cost assessments faced keymethodological challenges, including the difficulty in estimating economicvalues of intangible effects of disasters, such as impact on human life,suffering, and ecological services, different rates of time preferences ordiscounting the future, as well as the difficulties associated with properlyaccounting for the distribution of costs and benefits across differentsectors of society (Parry et al., 2009). Such challenges suggest that thevalue of tools, such as cost-benefit analysis, for the assessment ofeconomic efficiency, even with risk considerations, may lie in theusefulness of the analytical process rather than the numeric outcomesper se. They suggest that in the context of climate adaptation, suchtools may be most usefully employed as a heuristic tool in the contextof iterative stakeholder decisionmaking processes (Moench et al., 2007).376