Half of world’s nations lack early warning systems: UN Report

GENEVA: The United Nations cautioned on Thursday that, despite the rise in catastrophic weather and climate disasters, half of the world’s nations lack the sophisticated early warning systems necessary to save lives.

According to a recent assessment by the UN agencies for weather and disaster risk reduction, nations with weak early warning systems experience eight times more disaster-related deaths than those with robust safeguards.

The world is experiencing more natural disasters that have “compounding and cascading implications” as the effects of climate change become more apparent. Therefore, countries should be equipped with multi-hazard early warning systems, but the survey found that only half of the world’s countries currently have such systems in place.

Countries are increasingly dealing with disastrous consequences of climate change, and poorer regions are the worst equipped because they are frequently the most exposed to climatic shocks and natural disasters. The repost states that just one-third of small island, developing states and less than half of the world’s least developed nations have multi-hazard early warning systems.

According to the UN research, from 2012 to 2021, there were roughly twice as many persons affected by disasters, up from an average of 1,147 per 100,000 people per year between 2005 and 2014. But at the same time, the annual rate of disaster-related fatalities or missing persons decreased from 1.77 per 100,000 people in the earlier period to 0.84.

The most recent example is the devastating monsoons in Pakistan which inundated one-third of the nation and killed close to 1,700 people. The UN is expected to present an action plan during the COP27 climate summit in Egypt in November. The UN wants all nations to implement early warning systems within five years. According to Antonio Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations, “those who have done the least to cause the climate crisis are paying the highest price.”