Natural and Environmental Disasters

26 Oct 2012 | SIDS Policy and Practice
23 October 2012: The UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) and the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) have released the ESCAP/UNISDR Asia-Pacific Disaster Report 2012, titled “Reducing Vulnerability and Exposure to Disasters.” The report was released on the sidelines of the Fifth Asian Ministerial Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR). The 133-page report underscores that growing disaster risks in the Asia-Pacific region are driven by the...
17 Oct 2012 | SIDS Policy and Practice
10 October 2012: Ministers responsible for water resources management in nine Caribbean countries have signed a declaration on water security at the 8th Annual High-Level Session (HLS) Ministerial Forum, a joint initiative of the Global Water Partnership-Caribbean (GWP-C) and the Caribbean Water and Wastewater Association (CWWA). Water ministers from the Bahamas, Anguilla, Barbados, Belize, the Commonwealth of Dominica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Jamaica, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines...
17 Oct 2012 | SIDS Policy and Practice
11 October 2012: The first South West Indian Ocean Climate Outlook Forum (SWIOCOF) was co-organized by Météo France, the Indian Ocean Commission (projet Acclimate) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). This first Forum built the capacity of meteorologists on the methods and tools used to develop seasonal climate outlooks, and tailoring them to the challenges faced by islands.  SWIOCOF took place from 24 September-2 October 2012, in Reunion, at the request of the member States of the...
15 Oct 2012 | SIDS Policy and Practice
11 October 2012: The World Risk Report 2012, published by the Alliance Development Works (Bündnis Entwicklung Hilft) in collaboration with the UN University Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS) and The Nature Conservancy, focuses on the theme of environmental degradation and disasters, assessing disaster risk based on information from 173 countries. The report’s centerpiece is its World Risk Index that identifies countries and regions at high risk of disasters based on 28...
11 Oct 2012 | SIDS Policy and Practice
8 October 2012: Delivering a lecture titled “Is anything being done on climate change?” at the Central Bank of Barbados in Bridgetown, Barbados, Christiana Figueres, UNFCCC Executive Secretary, conveyed three messages, namely that: climate change is happening; the world is doing something about it, “not enough, but we are walking in the right direction;” and much more can be done at the national level. Figueres underscored that current climate modelling has underestimated both the...