The Road to COP 27: Scaling up Joint Action to Reduce Climate-Related Disasters

The climate emergency continues to challenge existing norms and ways of working. The recent IPCC reports and the Global Assessment Report made it clear that climate impacts will further intensify, requiring us to transcend beyond conventional institutional silos and recalibrate governance beyond the current confines of climate change adaptation (CCA) and disaster risk reduction (DRR). To be ahead of growing climate and disaster risks, we need to ensure interoperability of interventions and connect people, initiatives, and approaches at the global, national, and subnational levels. 

These challenges are not new. In 2015, Member States (Parties) agreed to:

• Substantially reduce disaster risk and losses in lives, livelihoods and health and in the economic, physical, social, cultural and environmental assets of persons, businesses, communities and countries over the next 15 years (Sendai Framework)
• Establishing a Global Goal on Adaptation which would contribute to sustainable development and ensure an adequate adaptation response in the context of the long-term temperature goal (Paris Agreement, Art 7.1)
• At the same time, Parties also recognized the importance of averting, minimizing and addressing loss and damage associated with the adverse effects of climate change, and the role of sustainable development in reducing the risk of loss and damage (Paris Agreement, Art. 8.1)

The COP 26 established the Glasgow-Sharm el-Sheikh work programme on the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA) that outlines elements of the GGA - enhanced adaptive capacity, strengthened resilience, and reduced vulnerability to climate change - with a view to contributing towards sustainable development vis-à-vis the agreed temperature goal.

The GGA recognizes the need to scale-up adaptation action in the face of a warming climate. While there is a growing momentum towards adopting and implementing integrated approaches for CCA and DRR, the contribution and role of DRR in defining the GGA and raising the adaptation ambition has not been sufficiently explored. This also stems from limited understanding on how short- to medium-term DRR actions contribute to long-term CCA objectives.  

The special session aims to produce a usable and integrated DRR and CCA perspective that will contribute to the GGA Work Programme and scale up joint action to reduce climate-related disasters.       

Guiding question

As we proceed towards further scaling up action on disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation, there is a need to understand how best to apply a “layered” approach to design and plan implementation at various stages, before, during and after a disaster.

What should be the basis for setting goals and success criteria, in the context of comprehensive disaster and climate risk management, to develop the most effective pre- and post-disaster actions and build long-term resilience?