• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
Celebrating our 1,000th edition. The climate news you need
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  FEATURED
BREAKING: UN Nature Summit, the ‘Paris Conference for Biodiversity’, Moves to Montreal in December June 19, 2022
‘LET’S SUE BIG OIL’: Legal Team Launches Class Action Campaign for B.C. Municipalities June 17, 2022
‘It Could Have Been Any of Us’, Colleague Says, After Brazil Confirms Murders of Bruno Pereira, Dom Phillips June 17, 2022
Infrastructure Gap a ‘Life and Death’ Matter as Northern Canada Warms June 17, 2022
Ban Fossil Fuel Ads Like Tobacco Promos, Doctors Urge Ottawa June 10, 2022
Next
Prev
Home Climate Impacts & Adaptation

Nations Must Spend 1% to 2% of Budgets on Disaster Readiness

June 11, 2017
Reading time: 2 minutes

trokilinochchi/Wikimedia Commons

trokilinochchi/Wikimedia Commons

 

Citing heavy rains that flooded thousands of homes in Quebec earlier this spring, as well as inundations in Sri Lanka and Colombia, the head of the Asian Development Bank’s independent evaluation office is urging national governments to direct at least 1% to 2% of their budgets to preventing increasingly extreme weather events from becoming human disasters.

Writing for the Brookings Institution’s blog, Vinod Thomas presents evidence that extreme floods and storms have occurred more often since about 1975. Both are influenced by the amount of heat and water in the atmosphere—factors that  intensify as the atmosphere warms. By contrast, disasters caused by geophysical events (earthquakes, tsunamis) have remained stable in number.

Growing populations in high-risk zones along coast lines and in river valleys contribute to the rising human consequences from such storms, Thomas concedes, but a “neglected” aspect is that increasingly extreme precipitation is overtaking water management infrastructure designed for decades past.

“In Sri Lanka’s latest floods, some places experienced more rain in a day than the usual for a year,” he observes. “Earlier this year in Colombia, heavy rains overnight caused rivers to burst their banks, taking over 200 lives.”

Mismanagement produces its own consequences. “Thailand’s 2011 floods—which submerged economic heartlands and caused losses amounting to 13% of GDP—were aggravated by the misjudged release of water from dams,” Thomas notes. “During the 2013 floods in Uttarakhand, India, the debris from dam construction upstream blocked rivers, augmenting the overflow.”

Thomas recommends an early focus on key social infrastructure points. Authorities should concentrate on “making hospitals, emergency shelters, and other vital installations more disaster resistant, and ensuring functioning lifelines—notably potable water, first aid, and power supplies—during disasters,” he writes. “This is essential, as floods can disrupt supply chains and information networks.”

With a continuing escalation of violent weather baked into the warming climate system for at least another several decades, the ADB evaluator notes, “disaster prevention must become a bigger priority to protect human and physical capital, and probably needs to be 1–2% of national budgets.”



in Climate Impacts & Adaptation, Health & Safety, International, Severe Storms & Flooding

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

Jason Woodhead/Flickr
Pipelines / Rail Transport

Trans Mountain Pipeline On Track to Lose $600 Million, Parliamentary Budget Officer Finds

June 24, 2022
288
Erik Whalen/wikimedia commons
Severe Storms & Flooding

Yellowstone Park Reopens, But Flood Recovery Could Take Years, Cost Billions

June 24, 2022
60
zephylwer0/pixabay
Supply Chains & Consumption

North American Steel, Aluminium Giants Lumber Toward Green Transition

June 24, 2022
147

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

Jason Woodhead/Flickr

Trans Mountain Pipeline On Track to Lose $600 Million, Parliamentary Budget Officer Finds

June 24, 2022
288
Ben_Kerckx/Pixabay

Plastics Cited as ‘Fossil Industry’s Plan B’ as Guilbeault Announces Partial Ban

June 24, 2022
171
zephylwer0/pixabay

North American Steel, Aluminium Giants Lumber Toward Green Transition

June 24, 2022
147
Nemaska Lithium/Facebook

Critical Minerals, Hydrogen Lead Ottawa’s Low-Carbon Industry Strategy

June 24, 2022
79
/PxFul

Canadian Farmers Offer Ottawa a Roadmap to Cut Agriculture Emissions

June 24, 2022
83
Bruce Reeve/Flickr

Opinion: Ontario’s New ‘Carbon Tax’ Looks Like the One Doug Ford Fought

June 7, 2022
1.5k

Recent Posts

Erik Whalen/wikimedia commons

Yellowstone Park Reopens, But Flood Recovery Could Take Years, Cost Billions

June 24, 2022
60
TAFE SA TONSLEY/Flickr

Clean Energy Investment to Exceed $1.4T This Year, Still Falls Short of Climate Goals: IEA

June 24, 2022
80
Cjp24/Wikimedia Commons

UK Green Shift Won’t Repeat Job Destruction of Deindustrialization, Report Finds

June 24, 2022
29
Pavlofox/Pixabay

Millions Face Famine as Climate Disasters, Ukraine War Slash Food Supplies

June 24, 2022
38
Chris Lim/Wikimedia Commons

China Has 9 Times the Wind, Solar Potential It Needs for Carbon Neutrality

June 24, 2022
54
willenhallwench / Pixabay

PG&E Risks Greenwashing with Definition of ‘Scope 4’ Emissions

June 24, 2022
44
Next Post
U.S. Department of State/WikimediaCommons

Global Community ‘Dodged a Bullet’ with Trump’s Paris WIthdrawal

The Energy Mix

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Navigate Site

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Follow Us

No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}