World "sleepwalking" into disasters: U.N. aid chief
Pastor Dale Morgan
World "sleepwalking" into disasters: U.N. aid chief
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Tue Jun 16, 2009 10:06am EDT
By Jonathan Lynn
GENEVA (Reuters) - The world is 'sleepwalking' toward preventable
natural disasters whose effects could be cut significantly with a modest
increase in spending on risk reduction, the United Nations aid chief
said on Tuesday.
"The trends in disasters, particularly from climate change, are of
enormous concern," said John Holmes, U.N. undersecretary-general for
humanitarian affairs.
"We can only expect that this kind of trend is going to continue," he
told a news conference.
Holmes was speaking at the start of a four-day Global Platform for
Disaster Risk Reduction which gathers over 1,800 participants from 169
governments and around 140 international and non-governmental organizations.
Risk reduction efforts had improved since the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami,
which killed more than 250,000 people, but much more was needed, Holmes
said.
"We're still to some extent sleepwalking our way into disasters for the
future which we know are going to happen, and not enough is being done
to mitigate the damage," he said.
Holmes hoped the Global Platform would agree to spend around $3 billion
a year on disaster risk reduction, representing about 10 percent of the
$8 billion spent each year on disaster relief, plus 1 percent of the
$239 billion development aid budget.
By comparison, disasters in 2008 caused approximately $200 billion in
damage, Holmes said. While the cost two years earlier was a quarter of
that, the trend was clearly rising.
"The most damaging disasters in developing countries can seem to cause
the least damage because the property being damaged is less expensive
... but the real damage done to lives and livelihoods is much greater,"
Holmes said.
It was important global efforts to deal with climate change include
disaster risk reduction and look at adapting behavior as well as
mitigating the effects of disasters, he said.
About 90 percent of disasters are climate-related, said Holmes, who
noted cyclones in Brazil in 2004 and Oman in 2007 had been of an
intensity never before seen in those regions.
The massive earthquake in Sichuan, China, last year, and another
earthquake in Italy this year had shown both the need for tough building
codes and the importance of enforcing them.
PREVENTATIVE MEASURES
Priorities for the Global Platform meeting include plans to
disaster-proof schools and hospitals, build up early-warning systems,
reduce human settlement in disaster-prone areas and restore and
safeguard ecosystems.
Bangladesh, where many people live in a coastal area prone to flooding
and cyclone-driven sea swells, has cut the death toll from disasters
dramatically through early-warning systems.
But the U.N.'s World Meteorological Organization estimates 60 of its
members do not have adequate systems, Holmes said.
Most of the 10 biggest "megacities" of 25-35 million people are in
dangerous coastal areas or earthquake zones. Nearly one billion people
live in "informal settlements" or city slums, with the number growing by
25 million a year, as urbanization exposes more people to the risk of
disaster, he said.
(Editing by Stephanie Nebehay and Sophie Hares)