Early Warning Technologies Can Be Game-Changers for Climate Adaptation
Posted 15th March 2023
UN Climate Change, 14 March 2023 - Early Warning Systems are a proven and feasible means of helping people to adapt to climate change. Such systems can provide up to a tenfold return on investment by saving lives and livelihoods in the case of extreme weather events such as ever more intense and frequent storms and floods. And smart, innovative technologies are playing an increasingly important role in making them effective.
These were the key conclusions of a meeting last month of the UNFCCC’s Technology Executive Committee in collaboration with the children and youth constituency of the UNFCCC, which convened a “deep-dive” discussion on Early Warning Systems at the 2023 edition of the Global Sustainable Technology and Innovation Community (G-STIC) Conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has made the UN’s “Early Warnings for All” initiative a priority, with the World Meteorological Organization leading the effort. The goal of the initiative is to ensure that every person on Earth is protected by early warning systems within five years. An executive action plan for the initiative was announced at the UN Climate Change Conference COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, last year.