News and announcements

Australia is helping Vietnam to identify its communities and regions at risk of the impacts of climate change. By identifying people and places most at risk, Vietnam will be better placed to prioritise how it responds to climate change...

UNISDR today welcomed the full publication of the Special Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (SREX) and said "it provides us with the impetus for action to save the world from the worst that climate change can bring to our planet in the coming years."

'The overall objective of the adaptation programme is to work together to come up with new data, research findings, and strategies to strengthen planned as well as autonomous adaptation to climate change, both at community and policy levels', said Dr Eklabya Sharma, Director of Programme Operations, ICIMOD...

The Indian Disaster Management Act 'might have laid down provisions for mitigation, prevention and preparedness in the event of a catastrophe, but the status of disaster management at the grassroots in India leaves a lot to be desired'...

Food crises can no longer be treated as limited events caused by occasional hazards like droughts or floods. If acute food crises can be triggered by drought, they are short term peaks of an underlying trend of increasing chronic vulnerability...

'Our chapter was the only one by Working Group 1 in the report.' 'The main message is that there are already changes in extremes that we can observe. How sure we are with regard to these changes depends strongly on the considered extremes and regions,' said ETH-Zurich professor Sonia Seneviratne...

'Whilst strengthening our efforts in responding to disasters, we must strategise on ways to reduce the risks that disasters pose, whether they be floods, cyclones or earthquakes,' writes Stefan Priesner, UNDP Country Director in Bangladesh...

'Rubble removal has been very impressive,' UN Humanitarian Coordinator and UNDP Resident Coordinator Nigel Fisher said. 'More than half the rubble has been removed at a much faster rate than in Aceh, Indonesia, after the tsunami and in lower Manhattan after 9/11'...