Op Ed

Greater efforts to limit death and destruction from disasters will help us protect development progress and adapt to climate change.

For a growing number of populations around the world, facing a future of more frequent and extreme disasters will only be possible if more funding is channelled towards adaptation and disaster risk reduction, writes Mami Mizutori.

The focus of this year’s IDDRR on 13 October is on a topic which has been pushed to the fore by the debates raging around the faltering response to planetary emergencies such as the COVID-19 pandemic an, the climate emergency.

The health crisis stress-tests our ability to cooperate, learn and adapt in the face of deep uncertainties and rising risks. The new coronavirus, COVID-19, was declared a “public health emergency of international concern” by the World Health Organization

Reflecting on Brazil's recent technical disaster, Mami Mizutori, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for DRR, writes in this op-ed that the fatalities and extreme environmental damage associated with tailings dam failures are avoidable. Inadequate risk governance is a key risk driver, and the mining industry must establish a zero casualty policy.