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UN wants global climate early warning systems in 5 years

March 24, 2022

UN chief says the project aims to give everyone the capacity to act as natural disasters have grown more powerful and frequent due to climate change.

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A technician checks a weather buoys instrument
Guterres said it was unacceptable that many people were still not covered by early warning systemsImage: Hotli Simanjuntak/epa/dpa/picture alliance

Everyone on the planet should be in the range of early weather-warning systems within five years, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Wednesday.

"Each increment of global heating will further increase the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events," Guterres said.

Early warning systems allow for the monitoring of real-time atmospheric conditions at sea and on land and predict upcoming weather events.

Guterres said the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) aims to make the systems already used by many wealthy countries, available to the developing world.

A third of the world's people are without early warning coverage, especially in the least developed countries and developing small island states.

"This is unacceptable, particularly with climate impacts sure to get even worse,'' Guterres said.

"Early warning systems save lives. Let us ensure they are working for everyone," he added.

WMO expects high return on investment

The plan will cost $1.5 billion (€1.36 billion), and the WMO will present an action plan at the UN climate conference in Egypt in November.

The organization said the number of weather disasters it recorded went up fivefold from 1970 to 2019 due to climate change. There was also an increased number of extreme weather events and improved monitoring which contributed to the uptick in the number of events recorded.

"Thanks to better warnings, the number of lives lost decreased almost three-fold over the same period," the WMO said.

The Global Commission on Adaptation suggested that spending $800 million on early-warning systems in developing countries alone would avoid up to $16 billion in annual losses.

lo/kb (AFP, AP, Reuters)