Early Warning System for the Entire World in Next Five Years

What’s in today’s article:

• About the CRDI
• News Summary

 

Why in news?

• Taking forward the initiative of the India-backed Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI), the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) recently announced a 5-year program to establish early warning systems around the world.
• The proposal calls for a $3.1 billion investment between 2023-27 to increase infrastructure and capacity in early warning systems.
• The above program was announced by the UN Secretary General at the ongoing COP27 climate change conference at Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. 

 

The Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI):

Background - Need for a disaster-resilient infrastructure:

• Many countries, including India, have established robust disaster management practices that have significantly reduced human casualties in disasters.
• However, the economic costs of a disaster remain enormous, owing primarily to the destruction of large infrastructure.
  • The World Bank estimates that Cyclone Fani, which hit Odisha in 2019, caused $4 billion damage.
• As a result, future infrastructure must account for the increased risks associated with the increased frequency and intensity of extreme weather events of climate change.
• Disaster-proofing a project to make them more disaster-resilient would involve changes in design, use of newer technologies, involving additional costs which is only a fraction of what a disaster can bring.

About:

• CRDI is an India-backed international platform, announced by the Prime Minister of India at the UN Secretary General's Climate Action Summit in New York in 2019.
• Secretariat of CDRI would be based in New Delhi.
• CDRI isan attempt to bring countries together to share and learn from the experiences of one another to protect their key infrastructure - highways, railways, power stations, communication lines, etc., against disasters.
• It aims to assist member nations in integrating disaster management policies into all of their activities.
• CDRI members include not just countries, but UN bodies, financial institutions, groups working on disaster management, etc.

Significance:

• To identify and promote best practices: This means, the platform is not meant to plan, execute or finance infrastructure projects.
• To provide access to capacity building.
• To work towards standardisationof designs, processes and regulations relating to infrastructure creation and management.
• To make entire networks resilient, as modern infrastructure is also a web of networked systems, not always confined to national boundaries.

News Summary:

• Need of early warning systems around the world:
  • According to the WMO, nearly half of the world's countries, the majority of which are least developed and small island states, lack early warning systems.
  • Early warning systems save lives and give significant economic advantages. For example,
    • A mere 24 hours' notice of an upcoming hazardous occurrence can reduce the resulting harm by 30%.
    • Spending roughly $ 800 million on early warning systems might save up to $ 3-16 billion in damages per year.
  • CDRI proposed a similar concept last year, focusing mostly on small island states.
    • The program - Infrastructure for Resilient Island States (IRIS), was designed to assist in the establishment of early warning systems.
• Highlights from the UN Secretary General's address at the launch event:
  • Despite decades of climate discussions, progress has been insufficient to preserve the globe from catastrophic warming because governments are too slow or unwilling to act.
  • Countries gathered at the COP27 summit face a difficult choice - work together now to cut emissions or perish, as the world is on a highway to climate hell with foot on the accelerator.
  • Signatories to the2015 Paris climate agreement pledged to a long-term objective of keeping global temperatures from increasing more than 1.5 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels.
    • To keep any hope alive of meeting that goal means achievingglobal net zero emissions by 2050.
    • It is either a Climate Solidarity Pact or a Collective Suicide Pact.
  • A partnership between the world's richest and poorest countries is needed to hasten the transition away from fossil fuels and accelerate the transfer of funds needed to enable poorer countries to reduce emissions.
    • The world's two largest economies (the US and China) bear a special duty to work together to make this agreement a reality.
  • He urged countries to agree to phase out the use of coal by 2040, with members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) reaching that goal by 2030.