The number of recorded disasters has increased fivefold – partly due to climate change caused by human activities and the multiplication of extreme weather events – and everything indicates that this trend will continue.

Half of the world’s countries do not have early warning systems, and even fewer have regulatory frameworks to link early warnings to emergency plans. Coverage is worse in developing countries facing climate change on the front lines, particularly least developed countries and small island developing states, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) warned during a summit of world leaders at the Conference on the United Nations Organization (UN) on climate change (COP27).

Early warning systems are generally considered to be an affordable resource for adaptation to climate change, as they are a relatively cheap and effective way of protecting people and property from hazards such as storms, floods, heat waves and tsunamis, to name a few.

The Secretary General of the United Nations Organization (UN), António Guterres, presented during COP 27 the action plan of the “Early Warnings for All” initiative, which must be completed in the next five years (2023-2027) and whose investment is of $3.1 billion.

WMO and its partners drafted the plan, which was supported by a joint statement signed by 50 countries.

The Global Commission on Adaptation concluded that investing just $800 million in such systems in developing countries would prevent annual losses of between $3 billion and $16 billion.

The project seeks to protect all of the Earth’s inhabitants by installing systems that issue early warnings of extreme and dangerous weather events.

The UN Secretary General commented that the constant increase in greenhouse gas emissions is fueling extreme weather events across the planet. These calamities are becoming more frequent, costing lives and hundreds of billions of dollars in loss and damage. He said climate-related disasters displace three times as many people as wars. Half of the population is already in the danger zone.

“We must invest equally in adaptation and resilience, and this includes information that allows us to anticipate storms, heat waves, floods and droughts. To that end, I have called for every person on Earth to be protected by early warning systems within five years, and helping the most vulnerable first and foremost must be a priority in that effort,” said Mr Guterres. .

The plan sets out the key areas to improve universal understanding of disaster risks and outlines the priority actions needed to achieve that goal, building on the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, the WMO said.

Similarly, it identifies the main technical actions that need to be taken as a priority to improve hazard detection capabilities, address observational gaps, improve global data-processing and forecasting systems, and promote the exchange of data on a global scale, taking full advantage of the efforts made at the international level.

The plan outlines how key financing mechanisms will be expanded to help achieve the goal, including developing a new framework in the context of the Climate Risk and Early Warning Systems (Crews) Initiative and the GCF, as well as the start-up of the Systematic Observations Financing Service (Soff).

Greater coherence and harmonization of current and planned investments by international financial institutions is also called for. In this regard, the Alliance for Hydrometeorological Development stands out, since it is an important association to coordinate the work of climate finance institutions.

The WMO noted that the plan recognizes the bilateral funds for early warnings that have been successful and emphasizes the need to streamline those mechanisms. Tracking progress and making informed decisions, as well as measuring success, are critical to effective implementation and plans have been made to develop an objective maturity index for the Early Warnings for All initiative prior to COP28.

To achieve progress and continued strategic harmonization of activities with implementing bodies, the UN Secretary-General is establishing an Early Warnings for All Board of Directors, co-chaired by the Executive Heads of WMO and UNDRR.