2020 VISION FOR A SUSTAINABLE SOCIETY
MELBOURNE SUSTAINABLE SOCIETY INSTITUTE
The Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute (MSSI) at the University of Melbourne, Australia, brings together researchers from different disciplines to help create a more sustainable society. It acts as an information portal for research at the University of Melbourne, and as a collaborative platform where researchers and communities can work together to affect positive change. This book can be freely accessed from MSSI’s website: www.sustainable.unimelb.edu.au.
Cite as: Pearson, C.J. (editor) (2012). 2020: Vision for a Sustainable Society. Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute, University of Melbourne Published by Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute in 2012 Ground Floor Alice Hoy Building (Blg 162) Monash Road The University of Melbourne, Parkville Victoria 3010, Australia Text and copyright © Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without prior permission of the publisher. A Cataloguing-in-Publication entry is available from the catalogue of the National Library of Australia at www.nla.gov.au 2020: Vision for a Sustainable Society, ISBN: 978-0-7340-4773-1 (pbk) Produced with Affirm Press www.affirmpress.com.au Cover and text design by Anne-Marie Reeves www.annemariereeves.com Illustrations on pages 228–231 by Michael Weldon www.michaelweldon.com Cover image © Brad Calkins | Dreamstime.com Proudly printed in Australia by BPA Print Group
Foreword
T
he last two centuries have seen extraordinary improvements in the quality of human lives. Most people on earth today enjoy access to the necessities of life that was once available only to the elites. Most people enjoy longevity, health, education, information and opportunities to experience the variety of life on earth that was denied even to the rulers of yesteryear. The proportion of humanity living in absolute poverty remains daunting, but continues to fall decade by decade. The early 21st century has delivered an acceleration of the growth in living standards in the most populous developing countries and an historic lift in the trend of economic growth in the regions that had lagged behind, notably in Africa. These beneficent developments are accompanied by another reality. The improvements are not sustainable unless we make qualitative changes in the content of economic growth. The continuation of the current relationship between growth in the material standard of living and pressures on the natural environment will undermine economic growth, political
stability and the foundations of human achievement. The good news is that humanity has already discovered and begun to apply the knowledge that can reconcile continued improvements in the standard of living with reduction of pressures on the natural environment. The bad news is that the changes that are necessary to make high and rising standards of living sustainable are hard to achieve within our current political cultures and systems. Hard, but not impossible. That is a central message from this book, drawn out in Craig Pearson’s concluding chapter. This book introduces the reader to the many dimesions of sustainability, through wellqualified authors. Climate change is only one mechanism through which current patterns of economic growth threaten the natural systems on which our prosperity depend. It is simply the most urgent of the existential threats. Climate change is a special challenge for Australians. We are the most vulnerable of the
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developed countries to climate change. And we are the developed country with the highest level of greenhouse gas emissions per person. There are roles for private ethical decisions as well as public policy choices in dealing with the climate change challenge. This book is released at the time of ‘Rio+20’, a conference in Brazil to review the relatively poor progress we have made towards sustainability in the past 20 years, and soon after the introduction of Australia’s first comprehensive policy response to the global challenge of climate change. Australia’s emissions trading scheme with an initially fixed price for emissions permits comes into effect on 1 July 2012. The new policy discourages activities that generate greenhouse gases by putting a price on emissions. The revenue raised by carbon pricing will be returned to households and businesses in ways that retain incentives to reduce emissions. Part of the revenue will be used to encourage production and use of goods and services that embody low emissions. The policy has been launched in controversy. Interests that stand to gain from the discrediting of the policy argue that it is unnecessary either because the case for global action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the associated climate change has not been proven, or that the new policy places a disproportionate burden on Australians. The health of our civilisation requires us to bring scientific knowledge to account in public policy. Everyone who shares the knowledge that is the common heritage of humanity has
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a responsibility to explain the realities to others wherever and whenever they can. The argument that the new policy places a disproportionate burden on Australians can be answered by seeking honestly to understand what others are doing. The critics of Australian policy argue that the world’s two largest national emitters of greenhouse gases, China and the United States, are doing little or nothing to reduce emissions, so that it is either pointless or unnecessary for us to do so. China has advanced a long way towards achieving its target of reducing emissions as a proportion of economic output by 40 to 45 per cent between 2005 and 2020. It has done this by forcing the closure of emissions-intensive plants and processes that have exceptionally high levels of emissions per unit of output, by imposing high emissions standards on new plants and processes, by charging emissionsintensive activities higher electricity prices, by subsidising the introduction of low-emissions activities, and by new and higher taxes on fossil fuels. China has introduced trials of an emissions trading system in five major cities and two provinces. This adds up to a cost on business and the community that exceeds any burden placed on Australians by the new policies – bearing in mind that the revenue from Australian carbon pricing is returned to households and businesses. The US Government has advised the international community of its domestic policy target to reduce 2005 emissions by 17 per cent by 2020. President Barack Obama said
to the Australian Parliament that all countries should take seriously the targets that they had reported to the international community, and made it clear that the United States did so. United States efforts to reduce emissions are diffuse but far-reaching. They now include controls on emissions from electricity generators, announced in March 2012, effectively excluding any new coal-based power generation after the end of this year unless it embodies carbon capture and storage. From the beginning of next year they will include an emissions trading system in the most populous and economically largest state, California. The United States is making reasonable progress towards reaching its emissions reduction goals, with some actions imposing high costs on domestic households and businesses. Australia has now taken steps through which we can do our fair share in the international effort, at reasonable cost. It would be much harder and more costly to do our fair share without the policies that are soon to take effect. What Australians do over the next few years will have a significant influence on humanity’s prospects for handing on the benefits of modern civilisation to future generations. This book will help Australians to understand their part in the global effort for sustainability. Ross Garnaut University of Melbourne 15 April 2012
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Contents Foreword by Ross Garnaut Table of Contents
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Author Biographies
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Drivers
1
1 Population Rebecca Kippen and Peter McDonald
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2 Equity Helen Sykes
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3 Consumption Craig Pearson
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4 Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Climate Change David Karoly
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5 Energy Peter Seligman
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People
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6
Ethics Craig Prebble
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Culture Audrey Yue and Rimi Khan
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Awareness and Behaviour Angela Paladino
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Local Matters Matter Kate Auty
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10 Public Wisdom Tim van Gelder
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11 Mental Health Grant Blashki
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12 Disease Peter Doherty
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13 Corporate Sustainability Liza Maimone
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14 Governance John Brumby
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Natural Resources
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15 Ecosystem-Based Adaptation Rodney Keenan
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16 Water Hector Malano and Brian Davidson
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17 Food Sunday McKay and Rebecca Ford
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18 Zero Carbon Land-Use Chris Taylor and Adrian Whitehead
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Cities
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19 Changing Cities Peter Newman and Carolyn Ingvarson
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20 Affordable Living Thomas Kvan and Justyna Karakiewicz
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21 Built Environment Pru Sanderson
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22 Infrastructure Colin Duffield
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23 Transport Monique Conheady
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24 Adaptive Design Ray Green
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25 Handling Disasters Alan March
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Outcomes
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26 Twenty Actions Craig Pearson
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Further Reading
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Index
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25 Handling Disasters Alan March
D
isasters occur when the systems that people rely upon are overwhelmed and can no longer continue to function normally. Studying disasters – their causes, our responses to them and capabilites to avoid them – is a critical way to gauge the sustainability of society and the environment, not least because it is largely as disasters that unsustainability will manifest. There are many things that can cause human systems to fail. Disasters, in the sense used in this chapter, are sudden events that
affect large numbers of people, many of whom will suffer from severe effects. It’s important that we ask how human societies contribute to the creation of these disasters and how we can better prepare for their occurrence. While the climate is changing and natural hazards are likely to occur more frequently and severely, we should be mindful that cities – where most of the world’s population lives – are increasingly vulnerable. What steps should we take to create a more sustainable society? Should we
Damaged Buildings in the aftermath of the August 2010 mudslide in Drugchu County, Tibet, in which an estimated 1300 died. Excessive vegetation clearing for mining and modification of river systems are blamed. Source: REUTERS/Aly Song.
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Handling Disasters
focus on building more disaster-resilient cities to lessen the likelihood of our systems being overwhelmed in an uncertain future? What can we learn from our responses to past disasters and should we just accept that some parts of the world are more prone to disaster than others?
Types of Disaster It is typical to characterise disasters according to the hazards with which they are associated. Some of these disasters have their primary source in the physical and ecological systems of the natural world and become disasters only when they intersect with humans – for example earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, bushfires, landslides and cyclones. Other disasters are more directly associated with breakdowns in human-made systems, such as chemical spills, terrorism, economic crises and famine. In examining the nature of these disasters, it becomes evident that distinctions are not always clear between ‘natural’ and ‘human-made’. The natural world affects us, just as we affect it. A problem we must face is that cities will become more prone to disasters, due to their increasing size and economic importance, the increasing variance in weather systems, and the increasingly complex relationships between the factors that support life in cities. Cities are also where most of the world’s population live, and for these reasons, this chapter will largely deal with disasters in cities. In more recent times, the rapid growth of cities has been associated with their ability to develop systems for the efficient production and distribution of goods, services, ideas
and money. Cities are not just large numbers of people living in proximity, but a host of overlapping systems that deliver and distribute food, water, electricity, education, health, transport and a range of other benefits. These overlapping systems consist of networks with a range of different spatial scales. For example, food delivered to a shelf in your local shop might include eggs from a local grower, oranges from Spain, milk from Gippsland, apples from New Zealand, and maple syrup from Canada. These products might have been delivered by cargo ships, aeroplanes, trucks and rail. The people purchasing these products might earn money from a range of activities including international corporations, national government, state welfare providers, local business and street busking.
Disasters Occur in Places When a disaster occurs, it is in a highly particular way, relating to the conditions of a place. In general the disasters affecting cities are those resulting from interactions with the natural world, and those with their origins in human-made systems. The geographic location, design and overall pattern of a city are inherently linked to the likelihood and type of ‘natural’ disasters that it may be subjected to, including earthquakes, cyclones, tsunamis, fires or epidemics. Accordingly, cities that are located near fault lines are at considerably greater risks of damage from seismic activity or tsunami, whereas communities located on river plains are more susceptible to flooding. When we consider a single risk such as bushfire,
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we find that disasters are most likely when a combination of factors coincide: high fuel loads; hot, dry, windy summers; and urban populations interfacing with bushland. Building on this idea of layered factors of risk, cities have particular vulnerabilities: they are more susceptible to climate change impacts due to high densities of people and investments in infrastructure and systems for producing food and other commodities. While poorer nations often suffer unregulated population migrations into high-risk areas, wealthy nations may also be vulnerable due to dependence upon highly specialised systems for food and service distribution. Recognising the connectedness of places in their contexts, a wider definition of Christchurch, New Zealand is constructed in an earthquakeprone area. In February 2011, a 6.3 magnitude earthquake occurred, causing 181 deaths and extensive property damage. Source: US Embassy New Zealand. Built environment and physical features Governance networks: internal and external
Urban resilience
Social dynamics: human capital
Production, supply and consumption chains
Figure 1. Source: adapted from Resilience Alliance 2007.
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city resilience incorporating sustainability acknowledges the need to balance ecosystem and human functions. A resilient urban place has the ability and resources to prepare and organise itself prior to, during, and after disaster situations. The Resilience Alliance (2007) suggests that resilient cities should have appropriate systems integrating the following: governance networks; production, supply and consumption chains; social dynamics; and built environments (Figure 1). To achieve sustainability goals, the nature of cities in their settings, and the disasters that they are likely to face, require examination. For example, while cities generate the greatest per
Handling Disasters
Hoboken, New Jersey 2007. Hoboken is an island and many parts are actually below sea level, enclosed by levees. Flooding often occurs when storms coincide with high tides in the Hudson River. Sea level rise is expected to worsen this problem. Source: rdmathers, Flickr.
capita prosperity, UN-HABITAT analysis shows that intra-city inequalities have risen, leaving the urban poor areas in extreme deprivation, often in more debilitating conditions than the rural poor. Importantly, the likelihood and consequences of disasters can be modified by the particular characteristics of cities. Their design and layout, location and organisation, the characteristics of their population, and the ways that they are connected (or not) with their region and the world, will all influence the type and consequences of impacts. The next section goes on to consider the features of cities that affect resilience to disasters.
Build Resilient Systems and Populations The ability of cities to initially resist disasters (or to avoid them altogether) is a core element of disaster resilience. Prior conditions are important in establishing risk. Other things being equal, resistance to disasters means that resources have been appropriately allocated to establish locations of settlements, physical layouts, systems and processes that can withstand the tests that disasters might apply. Directly associated with this is resilience, simply described as the ability for a system to ‘bounce back’ after a setback, returning to normal operations. A key component of
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Quick facts – examples of inter-related disaster risk and sustainability factors • By 2080 millions more people will experience floods every year due to sea level rise, particularly in the dense low-lying megadeltas of Asia and Africa, and small vulnerable islands. • East Asia’s urban areas produce 92 per cent of wealth, Southeast Asia’s 77 per cent, and South Asia’s 75 per cent: urban resilience to disasters will increasingly be tied to economic fortunes. • The urban poor are the most vulnerable to disasters and have the lowest adaptive capacity. • About 250 million people in Asia’s urban areas live on less than $1 a day. • Asia’s cities are likely to contribute to significant GHG increases in the next 20 years, while becoming more vulnerable to climate change disaster impacts. Source: ADB, 2008.
resilience is the development of appropriate information regarding the vulnerabilities and resistive aspects of a city within its context. The broad areas of such an analysis are set out by the Climate and Disaster Resilience Initiative (CDRI), summarised below. This can be used as the basis for subsequent action to target improvements to areas of high vulnerability. The concept of redundancy in systems is important. If large numbers of people rely upon systems that can fail when single key elements are damaged, disasters can have far greater effects. It is clear that there is a strong correlation between poverty and increased vulnerability to disaster. Empirically, decreased levels of income, consumption and human development result from disasters in poor regions. These effects are significantly concentrated in poor communities, and impact upon these communities’ abilities to develop and improve their productivity, health and education levels. In such places, disasters can send communities
Climate and Disaster Resilience Initiative (CDRI) variables for city resilience analysis (2007) Dimension Physical Social
Electricity, water supply, sanitation, solid waste disposal, internal road network, housing and land-use, community assets, warning system and evacuation Health status, education and awareness, social capital
Economic
Income, employment, household assets, access to financial service, savings and insurance, budget and subsidies
Institutional
Internal institutions and development plan, effectiveness of internal institutions, external institutions and networks, institutional collaboration and coordination
Natural
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Variables
Hazard intensity, hazard frequency
Handling Disasters
Example – disaster effects on centralised infrastructure While Japan is a world leader in disaster preparation, its urban areas remain exposed to earthquakes, tsunamis, typhoons and sea level rise. The 11 March 2011 earthquake and tsunami led to over 18,000 confirmed deaths, with many injured and missing. The disaster had many cascading effects upon centralised critical infrastructure and distribution systems. Eleven nuclear reactors were automatically shut down when the earthquake struck, including the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, which subsequently had a radioactive leak when its backup generators were flooded. The initial loss of electricity complicated immediate communications, evacuation and response procedures. Additionally, over 200,000 people needed to be evacuated from the area surrounding the Fukushima plant to avoid radioactive contamination, consuming resources that could have been focused upon recovery. Overall, rescue operations were hampered by the loss of electricity and some 2.74 million households were without electricity across Japan. One month after the disaster, over 100,000 households were still without electricity in the Miyagi prefecture alone. Large and small companies were forced to suspend businesses, impacting on millions of individuals’ incomes, and many corporations suspended operations in their international plants due to the break in supplies of essential components, particularly in electronics and vehicles.
into a ‘negative feedback loop’ where poor people suffer a disaster, and are then forced into greater levels of risk by using temporary accommodation (often in risky locations), losing their livelihood and suffering multiple health threats (ISDR 2009). Prosperity does not guarantee resilience, however. Seeking growth and efficiency gains that depend on ‘brittle’ systems without sufficient redundancy can place a city at risk. For example, cities that are dependent upon a single supply system for delivery of essential services are particularly vulnerable. Cities are connected at a series of scales socially, by their economies and the physical services that serve them. These systems require multiple redundancy mechanisms to be resilient.
The link between efficiency, cow milk and natural gas Explosions killing two workers occurred at Esso Australia’s gas plant at Longford, Victoria in 1998. Seeking efficiency gains, supervision had been reduced from four persons to one, while all engineers had been relocated to the head office. While gas supply was stopped for over two weeks, a number of major factories ceased operations, leading to 25 million litres of milk being discarded.
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The resultant tsunami from the 11 March 2011 Japanese earthquake reached a maximum height at Miyagi of six metres, inundating a total area of 561km2. Source: Official US Navy Imagery, Flickr.
The need for stability The 12 January 2010 Haitin Earthquake caused between 50,000 and 90,000 deaths and left 1.5 million homeless. In the aftermath, riots in the city of Cap-Haitien undermined efforts to combat a cholera epidemic, increasing the risk of infection and death for tens of thousands of poorer Haitians. Transmission of cholera occurs via contaminated water or food, but can be treated if dealt with early via oral rehydration fluids. If not, victims can die in hours. In Haiti, protesters attacked UN peacekeepers and blocked roads with burning barricades, preventing cholera patients from reaching hospitals, while halting distribution of aid and medicines. Bodies of cholera victims were left in the streets while aid agencies tried to contain the spike in numbers of cases.
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Handling Disasters
Identify Risks
Monitor & Review
Communicate & Consult Community, Government, Business etc
Establish Context
Analyse Risks
EvaluateRisks
Treat Risks
Source: adapted from EMA 2004
Figure 1. The Disaster Impact Reduction Planning Process. Source: adapted from EMA 2004.
Governance and Processes Preparedness for disasters in cities is a collective activity. A wide range of factors need to be brought into line to reduce risk or to prepare emergency response plans. This includes the need to involve people at all levels of governance. Where communities are fragmented or divided – perhaps due to rapid migration, social unrest or political upheaval – it is difficult for governments to engage with communities or to draw together the actions of communities and multiple agencies. Disasters pose considerable challenges for governments. Inevitably, prior preparedness is put to question, as are response and recovery
processes. It is common for governments to respond to disasters in ways that may seem politically intelligent, to be seen to be ‘doing something’, but that may not be in the interests of long-term resilience. An alternative view is to consider disaster resilience as part of an ongoing institutional cycle, in which government plays a key facilitation role that promotes the interdependent nature of preparing for disasters. In an evolving city, the most important aspect of resilience is adaptation, whereby improvements and change occur as a result of learning from setbacks and improving capacity to deal with disasters in the future,
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EVENT: Fire, flood, earthquake, tsunami etc
PREPAREDNESS: Planning how to respond. Examples: preparedness plans; emergency exercises, training; warning systems.
Disaster Cycle
MITIGATION/ADAPTATION: Minimising the effects of disaster. Examples: building codes and zoning; vulnerability analyses; education
RESPONSE: Efforts to minimise the hazards created by a disaster. Examples: search and rescue; emergency relief.
RECOVERY: Returning of community to normal: temporary housing; grants; medical care.
Figure 2. Typical Phases of Disaster.
as an ongoing process. Figure 1 (on previous page) shows an example of Emergency Management Australia’s procedure for disaster risk reduction.
Emergency Response Plans The very nature of disasters means that, despite prior attempts to prepare, the systems of a place are sometimes unable to cope. In this scenario, emergency management and response approaches are central to treating disaster risk, and these must be directly relevant to
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the characteristics of the place to which they apply. These events require the ability for largescale, coordinated mobilisation of resources. In contrast, communities are often unprepared unless government interventions occur. The ability to respond to disasters is itself a key element of resilience, based primarily on preprepared capabilities. When disasters occur, typical cycles of preparation and response are followed. While these cycles overlap, the main stages are shown graphically in Figure 2 above.
Handling Disasters
Principles of response preparedness Preparation must be based on accurate knowledge of the nature of threats and their spatial distribution, likely consequences and possibilities for response. 1.
2. E mergency managers must be able to make the right decisions in appropriate time. 3. Disasters are dynamic events, so response flexibility is necessary. 4. Inter-organisational coordination is central to dealing with large-scale disasters. 5. Multi-hazard approaches allow for shared resources and training, and offer increased potential to leverage resources. 6. Preparation must have training and information dissemination components to highlight problems in advance and to normalise operations amongst the wider population. 7. Testing and assessment of response operations must be integral at all times. 8. Planning must be continuous due to changes to threats and to incorporate new technologies and equipment. 9. It must be expected that emergency planning is almost always conducted in the face of conflict and resistance, by citizens, public servants and elected officials, often because it consumes resources. 10. P reparation for disaster and management during a disaster are different operations – the ability to shift attitudes and roles between these is necessary. 11. The only real test is whether an emergency plan can cope. Source: Adapted from Alexander 2002.
ACTIONS FOR 2020 Community learning and knowledge are central to improving cities’ abilities to deal with climate change. Urban systems need collective learning processes allowing them to address climate change as part of city development. The potential for disasters specific to their particular place needs to be acknowledged and accounted for. Learning needs to occur in a participatory and inclusive way, so that the full range of built environment, governance, productive, distribution and consumption
systems are supported by the human systems. Accordingly, a key goal is to collectively build city disaster knowledge and act to reduce risks. One of the primary challenges to this is that people will often not understand and take shared responsibility for the disaster risks that they face and to which they contribute. The specific recommended action of this chapter by 2020 is to provide disaster kits and plans for every household, classroom and workplace. We need to take shared responsibility for determination of the risks
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associated with urban life, and the ways to reduce these as individuals and communities. Preparing disaster plans and disaster kits will firstly highlight our exposure to disasters of various types and build our resilience. Secondly, it will encourage the potential for adaptation, requiring us to seek improvements in the choices we make in terms of where we live, the systems used to distribute essential services, and the impacts of climate change on disaster frequency and severity. Disaster kits are by definition tailored to the particular risks associated with a place. A typical example would be a battery-powered or wind-up radio, sufficient non-perishable food and drinking water for three to four days, blankets, torches and batteries. Other items might relate to the specific nature of the people, the context and the disaster. For example, it is common in earthquake-prone areas for kits in workplaces to also include gloves for dealing with debris or broken glass, stout shoes to replace high heels, a whistle to aid identification, and more recently, booster batteries for mobile phones. This can be tied in to delivery of information and training by schools, the provision of internet sites that convey information based on careful appraisal of the spatial distribution of hazards, and training packages developed for workplaces, as well as through responding agencies and local governments.
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Further Reading Handling Disaster Alexander, D.E. (1994). Natural Disasters. Chapman and Hall, New York. Commonwealth of Australia (2004). Emergency Management in Australia Concepts and Principles. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (2007). Summary for policymakers. Solomon, S., et al. eds. Climate Change 2007: The physical science basis. Cambridge University Press. International Organisation for Migration (IOM) (2008). Migration and climate change. IOM migration research series No. 31. http://www.iom.int/jahia/Jahia/pbnEU/cache/offonce?entryId¼16584 ISDR (2009) Risk and Poverty in a Changing Climate: Invest Today for a Safer Tomorrow, Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction, Geneva, United Nations. http://www.preventionweb.net/gar09 Perry, R. W., Lindell, M. K. (2003). Preparedness for Emergency Response: Guidelines for the Emergency Planning Process. Disasters, 23, 336–350. Research Alliance (2007). A Research Prospectus for Urban Resilience: A Resilience Alliance Initiative for Transitioning Urban Systems towards Sustainable Futures, February 2007 CSIRO, Australia – Arizona State University, USA – Stockholm University, Sweden.