The 8th Session of the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction in Paris

John Richardson, Executive Director from AIDR was invited to the Accelerator for Systemic Risk Assessment Symposium in Paris and attended the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reductions.

A United Nations Conference reports on progress towards the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and facilitates high level dialogue between nations. The conference showcases good practice and capability building within the sector.

The conference began with an excellent session on systemic risk and polycrisis. It had a range of speakers from government, non-government organisations, academia and the think tank sectors. Brendan Moon, Coordinator General from the National Emergency Management Agency talked about the National Coordination Mechanism, which was interesting and well received.

Dr Jeffrey Schlegelmilch from Columbia University shared the intersection of public health as a combination of medical science, social science, and political science. This view was part of a good, broad discussion about lessons not learned from COVID.

Ruth Richardson (no relation) from the Accelerator for Systemic Risk was impressive, as she laid out the issues around uncertainty and how we must grapple with this, sharing: ‘we all don’t know how to do this, so let’s do it together.’

I attended a great side event organised by the Geneva Science Policy Interface. I liked their display that included questions on the high tables - should we find nothing in common to talk about. But we all did. There were broad ranging discussions on biological weapons control, medical sociology and the role of place connection underpinning our work.

During day two, I attended an interesting session focussed on loss and damage data. All the speakers seemed to be focussed on the short term, rather than factoring the impacts into risk models and decision-making.

There was a pertinent reminder that risk models are only as good as the data that goes into them. In the Philippines, data is being used from 16 major events to train artificial intelligence to predict losses from potential cyclone/flood events.

Manu Gupta from the Sustainable Environment and Ecological Development Society India talked about scale and focusing on citizen science initiatives. When you have 100 million people affected by floods, you need a different way of collecting data. This practice was echoed by China as well.

I made it to one of the learning labs, on wildfire and drought preparedness in Switzerland. A bit niche, yes, but it was run by the fabulous Christine Eriksen, the former Wollongong University researcher now working in Switzerland.

The Extreme Heat Governance session included leaders from across the globe, moderated by the Global Heat Health Information Network.

Participants included:

The Secretary General of the Red Cross
A Canadian senator
The Principal Adviser to the Indian Prime Minister
The Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organisation
French Climate Change Ambassador
A representative from the International Labour Organisation (ILO)
The Head of the Pan-African Meteorological Service
The Special Representative for Disaster Risk Reduction

There was a lot frank and robust exchange. The World Meteorological Organisation shared the daily temperature had exceeded 50C° ten times last year.

The ILO reported 19,000 deaths in workplaces last year relating to heat, and 8 million to injuries. Up to 10% of the deaths that occurred were outside periods declared as heatwaves.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation shared that 12% of food is lost to extreme heat – followed by a strong call for extreme heat to be included in all risk governance systems.

Kamal Kishore pointed out that extreme heat is entirely predictable, so deaths should be entirely avoidable, and this is what we needed to be working towards from the next extreme heat season.

The learning lab on the Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction was also impressive. They have been building health and wellbeing costs into disasters, based on the work of the World Bank. This helps us understand the true costs of disaster and invest accordingly.

I also went to an ignite stage presentation on Messy Maps, which looked at ways of including different sorts of social information on Geographical Information Systems. It was a fascinating way to incorporate video and audio stories into maps.

The Global Platform wrapped up on the Friday, with a sense of hope. Significant progress has been made in risk reduction, particularly relating to mortality and more needs to be done. The purpose of these platforms is to reinvigorate efforts to reduce risk. I walked away determined that we will play our small role in this major global challenge.