Official Statement of the European Union and its Member States, Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction (GPDRR 2022)

“From Risk to Resilience: Towards Sustainable Development for All in a COVID-19 Transformed World”

Distinguished delegates,

On behalf of the European Union and its Member States, we would like to thank the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction for convening the Seventh Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction, and the Government of Indonesia for hosting it in Bali.

The world has changed since we gathered at the last Global Platform in 2019. The global COVID-19 pandemic, the growing climate crisis and environmental degradation show that the impacts of disasters cascade across many sectors, have devastating consequences on the planet and the people and undermine our economies and livelihoods. The recent IPCC reports and the UN Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction are a red warning for humanity. We are dangerously reaching a tipping point that could lead to irreversible consequences.

The way we manage our ecosystems and natural resources such as water and land are determinant to reduce exposure and vulnerabilities, and to increase our resilience. Through ecosystem-based approaches and nature-based solutions, we can help affected countries and communities to build back better, prevent, or reduce future risks and be more resilient.

We urgently need to make the much-needed investments in disaster risk reduction.

Europe is not spared from these alarming trends. It is for this reason that last November in Portugal, at the European Forum for Disaster Risk Reduction, we committed to make disaster prevention and resilience a priority and we agreed on the need to accelerate efforts to implement the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction. Along with other signatories, we committed to:

• Promote greater investment in disaster resilience;
• Invest in a green and disaster resilient recovery;
• Better understand and communication on existing, emerging, and future systemic risks;
• Enhance efforts in promoting inclusive and collaborative risk governance and decision-making; and
• Collaborate, share knowledge and experience, and periodically review our progress.

The European Union and its Member States have taken a leading role to tackle these pressing challenges. We adopted the European Green Deal, a set of measures to make the EU's climate, environment, energy, transport and taxation policies fit for reducing net greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% by 2030. We have embedded disaster riskmanagement considerations in our key policies such as the agricultural and cohesion policies. In the aftermath of the COVID pandemic, we established a Recovery and Resilience Facility that finances reforms and investments in Member States from the start of the pandemic. We have also adopted an EU Adaptation Strategy to make climate change adaptation smarter, swifter and more systemic, and to step up international action in this area.

Another key milestone in EU action since the last Global Platform is the strengthening of the Union Civil Protection Mechanism. In 2021, the Mechanism was revised to improve prevention and preparedness through the definition of Union wide resilience goals and scenario plans. Improved disaster loss data collection was introduced to support evidence-based scenario building. This will contribute to making the Union Civil Protection Mechanism fit for purpose in a changing risk landscape.

We continue to work to further improve our early warning systems and those of our partners with the support of the European Global Flood Awareness System, European Global Forest Fires Information System, European Global Drought Observatory and Copernicus, in line with our Adaptation Strategy. We also welcome the UN Secretary General’s target announced at the 2022 World Meteorological Day to ensure that within the next five years, everyone on earth is protected by early warning systems against increasingly extreme weather and climate change, and will play our part in contributing to this objective.

We are also striving to continuously improve our understanding of risks, and to expand and share knowledge about disaster risk management for example through the recently establishedUnion Civil Protection Mechanism Knowledge Network and our research programmes like Horizon Europe.

We commit to examine the provisions of the Floods Directive and consider whether these could provide a basis for or an enhancement to flood risk management policy.

More broadly, we are working to further strengthen the Council’s Integrated Political Crisis Response (IPCR) arrangements, particularly in terms of crisis anticipation and preparedness.

The European Union and its Member States are leading humanitarian and development donors and policy actors. We are mainstreaming preparedness in humanitarian aid operations and scaling up anticipatory action to bolster the resilience of vulnerable communities to risks.

We have set a spending target of 30% for our Neighbourhood, Development and Cooperation Instrument to support efforts in partner countries related to climate change. For the period 2021-2027, around EUR 28 billion of the EU budget will be allocated to climate action in our partner countries around the world. We remain committed to the 2030 Agenda, the Sustainable Development Goals, the Paris Agreement and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction.

The EU supported the establishment of the Warsaw International Mechanism for loss and damage and also welcomed the launch of the Santiago network at COP25 to catalyse technical assistance between relevant organisations, bodies, networks and experts for vulnerable developing countries. We support a swift operationalisation of the Santiago network in order to ensure that the provision of technical assistance to vulnerable people and communities can happen as soon as possible.

Against the backdrop of increasing global risks, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction is more relevant than ever. We are half way through its implementation. The upcoming mid-term review will provide the opportunity to assess the progress made so far and provide recommendations for adjustments and more importantly, to restate our collective commitments to meet the targets we all agreed to.

The EU and its Member States remain committed to work together with our partners towards a greener and more disaster and climate-resilient sustainable world for all.

Thank you.