kalain.hosein@guardian.co.tt
Yellow-level weather alerts for everyone—well, not exactly. While our hazard-prone country is frequently placed under different alerts, watches and warnings for adverse weather, hazardous seas, flooding of all types and occasionally, tropical storms, Trinidad and Tobago is one of 95 countries equipped with a Multi-Hazard Early Warning System.
Still, this means more than half the countries globally lack an early warning system, leaving them to be potentially blindsided by incoming weather systems or other hazards. However, this is about to change.
Speaking at COP27 n Egypt, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres reaffirmed the UN’s target of ensuring every person on Earth is protected by early warning systems within five years, unveiling an action plan.
Echoing sentiments from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Secretary-General Prof Petteri Taalas, Guterres said, “Universal early warning coverage can save lives and deliver huge financial benefits. Just 24 hours’ notice of an impending hazardous event can cut damage by 30 per cent.”
He added, “Countries with limited early warning coverage have disaster mortality eight times higher than countries with high coverage.”
In the last eight years, the planet has been on track to record its warmest eight-year span. A rapidly warming world has led to vulnerable communities, like those in the Caribbean, being blindsided by cascading disasters, some fuelled by climate change impacts.
“People in Africa, South Asia, South and Central America, and the inhabitants of small island states are 15 times more likely to die from climate disasters,” Guterres said.
“Ever-rising greenhouse gas emissions are supercharging extreme weather events across the planet. These increasing calamities cost lives and hundreds of billions of dollars in loss and damage. Three times more people are displaced by climate disasters than by war. Half of humanity is already in the danger zone.”
Guterres said he had asked the WMO and the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction to co-lead an advisory board to provide guidance to countries with existing warning systems, while establishing new ones in vulnerable countries to reduce loss and damage.
Egypt’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and COP27 president Sameh Hassan Shoukry added, “The science is there and clearly shows the urgency with which we must act to assist those in need of support to adapt to the negative impacts of climate change. The launch of this executive action plan is an important contribution to adaptation and resilience, particularly in Africa, where 60 per cent of people are not covered by early warning systems.”
How will the plan work?
The United Nations will now spend US$3.1 billion to address the global early warning system gaps. Averaging approximately 50 cents (USD) per person per year, the WMO said this is “low-hanging fruit” because these early warnings are a relatively cheap and effective way of protecting people and assets.
In fact, Global Commission on Adaptation found that spending just $800 million on these systems in developing countries would avoid losses of $3 billion to $16 billion per year.
The estimated new targeted investments of US$3.1 billion over the five years will be used to advance the four key Multi-Hazard Early Warning System pillars. The highest allocation, US$1.18 billion, will be spent on observations and forecasting, as meteorological offices worldwide develop hazard monitoring and early warning services. Another US$1 billion will go towards preparedness and response as nations build national and community response capabilities, like what already exists in T&T with the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Management’s response frameworks and community emergency response teams across both islands. Dissemination and communication will also receive US$550 million to communicate risk information, so that warnings reach those who need it, ensuring it is understandable and usable. Lastly, US$374 million will go towards disaster risk knowledge, where officials systematically collect data and undertake risk assessments on hazards and vulnerabilities.
Where will the money
come from?
COP27 is all about climate financing, with money flowing from governments, international and multilateral development banks, the private sector and funding facilities from the United Nations.
For the Early Warning Action Plan, funding is expected to come from frameworks developed by the Climate Risk and Early Warning Systems Initiative, the Green Climate Fund, which has over US$37 billion at the end of 2021, and the operationalisation of the Systematic Observations Financing Facility.
The WMO notes the plan will utilise the Alliance for Hydromet Development as an important uniting partnership of climate finance institutions and bilateral funding.
Caribbean challenge
Coordinating Director of the Caribbean Meteorological Organization (CMO), Dr Arlene Laing, said a host of challenges lie ahead.
During a press conference on early warning at COP27, Laing said there is a current lack of vulnerability, exposure and risk maps to determine geographic specificity for early warnings.
Laing said language barriers, social and income inequality, disabilities and access to safe infrastructure are not always considered in the early warning process.
The CMO has 16 English-speaking Caribbean countries under its agency and Laing explained that detection, monitoring, analysis and prediction in real-time are not present in the Caribbean, with not all hazards monitored on a 24/7 basis. For this to happen, Laing said sufficient training, budgets and political will are needed within the region.
In a one-on-one interview with Guardian Media, Dr Laing said, “More than 50 per cent of countries do not have adequate multi-hazard early warning systems. In the Caribbean, we have multiple hazards that can occur simultaneously, cascading and cumulatively.”
She said six Caribbean countries had early warning systems “at the highest maturity levels,” but many lacked warnings that could protect their citizens.
Laing said the early warning system from the T&T Meteorological Service is one of these higher maturity level countries “in terms of having established the colour-coded system and hazards and having a group of stakeholders who work together to develop the hazard risk assessment that informs the colour-coded system.”
She said public and private stakeholders, civil society, the media and the public are all needed in getting the early warning messages out “for the last mile.”
Punishing the fear-mongers
In an exasperated crowd filled with disaster management officials, heads of national meteorology departments and representatives from international response agencies, the topic of “social media meteorologists” brought ire.
Dr Laing explained to the audience that when the Atlantic Hurricane Season begins, as soon as a “puff of clouds” move off the African coast, social media pages publish long-range model runs of a Category 5 Hurricane bearing down on the Caribbean region or unnecessarily calling for “life-threatening” conditions when the reality is far from.
The CMO is working with the Caribbean Disaster and Emergency Management Agency’s Comprehensive Disaster Management framework, the Climate Risk and Early Warning Systems initiative and member states to draft model meteorological legislation and accompanying meteorology policy.
“We’ve been able to develop draft legislation so far for eight of our member states. We’ve done another two for this year,” Laing said, adding the CMO is in the process of finalising one for Barbados.
She explained that the legislation allows the CMO to “give the mandate for the authoritative voice to the national meteorological services to be the ones who provide effective, user-oriented warnings and fit for purpose. It also allows them to know their responsibility relative to disaster offices, for example, and how they can work cooperatively.”
Dr Laing added that in their consultations, meteorological offices pushed for stiffer fines for the fear-mongers and doubling what has been proposed in the draft legislation.
The CMO has worked directly with countries like St Lucia and Jamaica to develop draft legislation for their respective meteorological services.
Still, Dr Laing said, “We’re not sure where they are at the moment in terms of whether they’re in Cabinet or not. The draft legislation was completed by our legal consultant, and it was accepted by the ministries that oversee meteorology.”
Dr Laing said the CMO has been working with the T&T Government through a transformative committee “to provide information as to how they [Government] can develop the Met Service further in T&T.”
She added that the Government was able to help the CMO better review and improve the model legislation and are taking it forward to help establish legislation within T&T.
Note: This story was produced as part of the 2022 Climate Change Media Partnership, a journalism fellowship organised by Internews’ Earth Journalism Network and the Stanley Centre for Peace and Security.
