By Paula Dupraz-Dobias
In the lead-up to the yearly UN climate meetings, vulnerable countries and advocates set their sights on securing new commitments on so-called “loss and damage” financing to address mounting damages from climate-linked disasters.
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A draft text being negotiated on Friday’s final day of meetings established a new network to improve “technical assistance” for averting disaster risks – but contained no language for new loss and damage financing.
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On the sidelines this week in Madrid, The New Humanitarian spoke with Mami Mizutori, head of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, about climate risks, why there’s missing data in quantifying loss and damage, and the changing attitudes about disaster prevention.
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TNH: After disasters hit, pledges are made but funds often do not materialise. How big a problem is this given that climate change is expected to worsen crises?
Mizutori: I am very concerned about that. If I take again the example of Mozambique, they asked the international community for support of up to $3.2 billion, but what was committed was $1.2 billion. This is just a commitment, so it doesn’t even mean that the money is rolling in. Just the other day, the UN Secretary-General António Guterres made a very special appeal to raise the funding to the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) to $1 billion. It is rather extraordinary that the secretary-general himself makes such an appeal, but it’s a testimony to the huge gap in humanitarian aid need and what is actually coming in. I think that if we cannot put more money into preventing disasters, this gap will keep on growing and growing.
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