A Brief Report Card of Early Warning Systems

Annually, innumerable lives across the globe are lost to floods, cyclones, and other natural disasters. A robust Early Warning System, along with a weather data-sharing mechanism between countries, and analyzing past patterns, can significantly reduce the death toll.

Frequent change in climatic conditions as a result of worsening natural environment leads to untimely floods, cyclones, and wildfires, causing severe damage to agricultural production, and pushing the world towards multiple crises, such as food shortage and oceanic degradation. Unless some serious, strict, and well-thought-out steps are taken, it is already too late.

Timely tracking, monitoring, and detecting natural disasters help save lives as well as resources, giving first responders ample time to prepare for evacua-

By Nibedita Mohanta

tion efforts well in advance.

What is an Early warning system (EWS)?

EWS is an adaptive measure for climate change that allows governments, communities, and individuals to timely act and minimize the impact of climate-related events, through integrated proper communication systems. EWS includes response plans based on lessons learned from other communities, past actions, and other countries to build a healthy response against future climate, water, and related environmental disasters.

In November 2022, at the COP27 climate change conference, UN Secretary-General, António Guterres announced the Executive Action Plan for the Early Warnings for All initiatives, to ensure everyone on the planet is protected by EWS within the next five years (2023-27). The plan calls for initial new targeted investments of $3.1 billion between 2023 and 2027.

UN Secretary-General has tasked the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) to lead the effort and prepare an action plan.

“One of the most powerful ways to adapt to climate change is to invest in EWS,” said WMO Chief, Peteri Taalas back in 2022, in an interview with Geospatial World.

He mentioned that people who reside in vulnerable areas like the small island states are fifteen times more likely to succumb to climate disasters, which displace three times more people globally than conflicts. And the situation is worsening.

A new report from the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) and the WMO published last year warns that half of the world’s countries are not protected by multi-hazard early warning systems (MHEWS).

The report shows that less than half of the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and only one-third of Small Island Developing States (SIDS) have MHEWS, and the countries with limited EWS coverage have eight times higher disaster mortality than those with high coverage. With the launch of the EWS plan, the UN believes it has taken the right step to protect the lives and livelihoods of vulnerable communities.

The plan has been set to understand the important gaps in disaster risks, monitoring, predicting, preparedness, dissemination of information, response to warnings, and sending rescue efforts.

WMO said the need for EWS is urgent as the number of recorded disasters has increased five-fold, driven in part by human-induced climate change and more extreme weather.

EWS is widely regarded as the “low-hanging fruit” for climate change adaptation because they are a relatively cheap and effective way of protecting people and assets from hazards, including storms, floods, heatwaves, and tsunamis to name a few.

 EWS provides more than a tenfold return on investment

 Just 24 hours' notice of an impending hazardous event can cut the ensuing damage by 30 percent.

 The Global Commission on Adaptation found that spending just US$800 million on such systems in developing countries would avoid losses of $3 to 16 billion per year.

Taalas said, “Such progress is only possible with modern science, sustained systematic observing networks, daily international exchange of quality data, access to high-quality early warning products, the translation of forecasts into impacts, plus advances in telecommunications."

EWS Footprint

Even though this trend is expected to continue, half of all countries do not have EWS in place, and even fewer have regulatory frameworks to link early warnings to emergency plans.

Coverage is worst for countries on the front lines of climate change, namely the world’s LDCs and SIDS.

"Currently, only half of the 193 WMO member countries have proper early warning services in place, which means when high impact weather event hits, the economic losses and casualties are higher,” added Taalas.

The countries which are capable of investing in the efforts to combat climate change are the ones least affected by extreme weather conditions and are the biggest contributors to climate change. And the countries which are least responsible for climate change, suffer the most.

Reports suggest that the most vulnerable regions are the ones that fall between the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, and most of the developing countries lie in this region.

“Accurate early warnings combined with coordinated disaster management on the ground prevented the casualty toll from rising even higher. But we can do even better and that is why the Early Warnings for All initiative is the top priority for WMO. Besides avoiding damages to the weather, climate and hydrological services are economically beneficial for agriculture, air, marine, and ground transportation, energy, health, tourism and various businesses,” Taalas said.

Subcontinent Experience

Areas around the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean, the eastern and western peninsular flanks of the country, are prone to heavy cyclones, causing loss of life, livelihood, and resources. As per UN reports, Cyclone Amphan which struck the Indo-Bangladesh border in 2022, lead to an economic loss of $14 billion.

While one can’t prevent a cyclone or the destruction in its trail, countless lives can be saved by the efficient use of Early Warning Systems (EWS).

It took around three years for India to come up with warning systems for all hydro-meteorological hazards in 2007, and 15 years to reduce mortality from cyclones by up to 90%.

"We have nearly 100% coverage of EWS for cyclones on both east and west coasts. We are working on building EWS for other hazards like heatwaves to make our communities resilient," said Indian Union Minister for Environment Forest and Climate Change Bhupender Yadav, at COP27.

Bangladesh has been one of the countries recognized as a "trailblazer when it comes to seeing what an effective early warning system looks like". In 2021 WMO adopted a resolution on the free exchange of weather data between all 193 member states, which accounts for Bangladesh and other vulnerable countries. Bangladesh's journey to build a world-leading EWS dates back to 1970, however, the effective exchange of weather data has made the efforts fruitful.

"Climate finance is still a mirage, and effective climate adaptation such as Early Warnings For All helps us collectively in our region toward reducing vulnerabilities and ensuring preparedness and swift and timely response to natural hazards,” added Yadav.

One-third of the world's people, especially in the LDCs and SIDS are still not covered by EWS, In Africa, 60% of people lack coverage.

It takes decades for developing countries to build a healthy and effective EWS, so the UN's five-year goal to ensure every person on Earth is protected by EWS seems more far-fetched. The question arises: Is the UN timeline of 5 years for all countries viable?

At the recently held United Nations Water Conference in New York, WMO Chief spoke about access to early warning systems for all within the next five years being a key UN priority.

Addressing Gaps and Accelerating Climate Actions

“We have the tools, the knowledge, and the solutions. But we must pick up the pace. We need accelerated climate action with deeper, faster emissions cuts to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degree Celsius. We also need massively scaled-up investments in adaptation and resilience, particularly for the most vulnerable countries and communities who have done the least to cause the crisis,” said Guterres.

Major gaps in areas of preparedness include lack of climate investment, lack of waste management, lack of communication network coverage, digital divide, and usage of data gaps among others.

By the end of 2021, 5.3 billion people subscribed to mobile services, which represents 67% of the global population. Estimated by the end of 2025 the total subscribers will reach 5.7 billion, almost 70% of the global population.

The coverage gap remains significant in Africa, 18% of the population still does not have access to a mobile broadband network and almost 17% lack such access in LDCs and LLDCs. In 2022, an estimated 2.7 billion people (One-third of the world's population) remain unconnected to the internet.

Aside from limiting connection to receive alerts, Members are not able to upload observation data to enable the production and download of the high-quality forecasts that are critical for alerts.

In 2021, the Global Basic Observing Network (GBON) was established, committing all countries to generate and exchange basic weather and climate data. However, today, less than 10 percent of these internationally agreed data are available from LDCs and SIDS. These critical data gaps hinder the provision of high-quality climate services around the globe.

For this reason, WMO, UNDP, and UNEP established the Systematic Observations Financing Facility (SOFF37) as a UN MultiPartner Trust Fund, with the support of an initial group of funding partners. SOFF provides long-term, technical, and financial support to the countries with the largest capacity gaps, to close their GBON data gap, with a focus on LDCs and SIDS.

This new mechanism contributes to achieving the adaptation and systematic observation goals of the Paris Agreement through the improved climate and weather observations essential for effective climate services and early warnings.

The Risk-informed Early Action Partnership (REAP) was launched in 2019 at the UN Climate Action Summit (UNCAS) to enhance collaboration among climate, disaster risk reduction, development, and humanitarian communities, to work towards making “1 billion people safer from disasters by 2025”. The Partnership currently includes 70 governments and partner organizations that collectively commit to working together.

The Centre of Excellence for Climate and Disaster Resilience is jointly hosted by WMO and UNDRR and comprises over 14 United Nations and international organizations. It aims to increase the availability, understanding, and use of climate and disaster data and analysis for risk-informed develop-

The following actions are recommended to accelerate actions

 Scaling up investments and focus on LDCs and SIDs

 Enhanced data and technology available to enhance MHEWS

 Applying the Sendai framework metrics and data to monitor early warning coverage

 Enhance the observation network and monitoring

 Strengthen the Early Warning value cycle through a systematic approach

 Male MHEWS people-driven with increased accountability

 Improve Early Warning communication and outreach ment and humanitarian action.

It also aims to strengthen climate and disaster risk governance through integrated planning and improved access to disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation in financing and investment mechanisms. Along with improving disaster preparedness and early action, including strengthening the availability and access to MHEWS.

The clock is ticking and the globe is undergoing severe changes with every passing day. Timely actions now can only minimize the severity of climate change if not entirely stop it from further accelerating. Assistant Editor, Geospatial World Nibedita@geospatialworld.net

Nibedita Mohanta