Climate Change Negotiations and Disaster Risk Reduction

Policy Forum Round-Table Discussions

 

Please download the unedited summaries from the round-table discussions at the Policy Forum on Linking Climate Change Negotiations and Disaster Risk Reduction, 12-13 November 2008.


Please note that the opinions expressed in the summaries do not necessarily reflect the views of the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

RT 1: Joining Forces: One Unified Approach for Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation?

Compared with the humanitarian community, which through the cluster approach has achieved a degree of structure and cohesiveness over the past three decades, the international disaster risk management community is in an earlier state of formation.  Two international processes for organizing the latter have been the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR) and the 2006 humanitarian review of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC). Despite these processes and because of the emergence of a number of new actors, notably the establishment of the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery, there is still a lack of clarity as to how various initiatives supporting disaster reduction and recovery fit together. This round table enabled all relevant stakeholders to gain an overview of the state of play. It helped to identify questions or issues for further clarification.

Chair: Ms. Anne-Birgitte Albrectsen, Head of Department, Humanitarian Assistance and NGO Cooperation, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Denmark

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RT 2: Disaster Risk Reduction Strategies and Risk Management Practices: Critical Elements for Adaptation to Climate Change

Disaster risk reduction, risk management and risk transfer have been identified as important strategies to adapt to the unavoidable impacts of climate change in the coming decades. In Poznan, governments exchanged views on the integration of risk reduction strategies in the adaptation element of the new climate change agreement.  
Scientists, humanitarian and development agencies had prepared technical papers and position papers whichformed the basis for discussion at this round table.

Chair: Ms. Madeleen Helmer, Head, Red Cross Climate Centre in the Hague

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RT 3: Development of High Quality Climate Related Information in Support of Climate Change Adaptation and DRR

This round-table discussion engaged a multi-disciplinary panel of experts from at-risk sectors and climate science.  It examined the challenges for decision-making in various climate-sensitive sectors in the context of changing patterns of risks.  Specifically, issues related to different time frames of decisions-making, needs for different types of climate information at different times and spatial scales and challenges with production of climate information, particularly in low income, high risk countries were discussed.
Opportunities for better management of future risks based on understanding and responding to current climate were  explored and issues related to uncertainty associated with available climate information in the context of decision-making were examined. The expected outcome was identification of concrete initiatives engaging scientific and technical, development and humanitarian partners to develop a consistent framework for development of climate information built upon the information needs and requirements of the sectors, latest scientific and technical methodologies, regional cooperation and national institutional capacity development.

Chair: Dr. Maryam Golnaraghi, Ph.D. Chief, Disaster Risk Reduction Division, World Meteorological Organization
Co-chair: Mr. Frank Sperling, Environmental Specialist, Climate Change Team, World Bank

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RT 4: Keeping the Focus Where It Should Be: Reducing Vulnerability and Building Resilience

Poor households manage a myriad of risks on a daily basis. These risks emanate from a great range of sources, including natural hazards, environmental degradation, social marginalization, conflict, lack of access to information and services, etc The risk landscape is changing rapidly, with climate change magnifying a number of risks, and existing risks becoming increasingly interdependent. This creates a much more complex and challenging environment for humanitarian and development actors, where institutional barriers for understanding and cooperation become irrelevant, and even detrimental, to providing effective support to poor communities in reducing risk and recovering from shocks. This calls for a unified focus on understanding vulnerability and building resilience. Climate change is amplifying risks; the global visibility of the climate change agenda provides an opportunity for climate change adaptation (CCA) to become an amplifier of key messages and mobilizer of actors around the need to support and empower poor communities to better manage risk. This round-table was to focus on how the risk landscape is changing, explore what this means for humanitarian and development agencies. It would then develop practical, actionable recommendations for supporting on-the-ground climate and disaster risk reduction.

Chair: Ms. Margaret Arnold, Head, ProVention Consortium, Geneva

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RT 5: Coordinating Financing Mechanisms for Effective Responses to Preventing and Managing Disasters Related to Climate Change

This session focused on how potential adaptation funding mechanisms could support disaster prevention and management, particularly in the most at-risk settings.
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations are discussing the establishment of a new adaptation fund, operating under the Convention, which could provide assistance to the poorest and most vulnerable developing countries to enable them to address climate change and adapt to its adverse effects. Clearly, such a fund must consider how it can help the most at-risk developing countries to prepare and respond in the case of extreme and potentially disastrous climate change related hazard events.  Some negotiators have begun to discuss whether there is a need to establish a preparedness and rapid international assistance mechanism. However, it is not clear if such new funds would duplicate existing mechanisms. Are there opportunities to coordinate climate change assistance within existing humanitarian response funding systems? What role should existing UN humanitarian coordination mechanisms play in a future CCA system? Could organisations such as UN OCHA play an important role in such coordination?

Key questions for discussion included:
1.    How can future potential costs of disaster prevention and management associated with climate change be estimated?
2.    Should funding mechanisms for preventing and managing the impacts of climate change be covered by separate funding mechanisms or build upon existing ones?
3.    Will proposed financing mechanisms ensure that the most high risk settings, including those with weaker regulatory or governance structures are prioritised? How?
4.    How would proposed financing mechanisms for risk transfer, including insurance, incentivise the development of a culture of disaster risk reduction?
5.    How could such systems be coordinated with existing disaster risk reduction and humanitarian coordination mechanisms?

Chair: Ms. Jenty Kirsch-Wood, Humanitarian Affairs Officer, Disaster and Vulnerability Policy Section, OCHA, Geneva

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