Developing capacities on climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction (DRR) in the Asia-Pacific region

Background

Over the past 20 years disasters have affected 4.4 billion people, caused USD 2 trillion of damage and killed 1.3 million people. Natural disasters affected people living in developing countries and the most vulnerable communities within those countries.

Over 95 percent of people killed by natural disasters are from developing countries. The Asia-Pacific is the world’s most vulnerable region when it comes to natural disasters. According to the World Disaster Report released by International Federation of the Red Crescent, as many as 85 percent of the people reported affected by disasters belonged to Asia-Pacific Region in the period 2000-2009.

In this regard, building resilience and adapting to climate change is crucial for cities especially those in the Asia-Pacific region. Efforts to build resilience in cities can benefit from integrating climate change adaptation with existing efforts in disaster risk reduction (DRR) and other similar planning processes.

Event objectives

This capacity building training workshop, while promoting the importance of effective climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction (DRR), will provide:

• an opportunity for countries in the Asia-pacific region to enhance capacities in climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction (DRR)
• a platform to exchange in-depth learning from experts in the related area and to share good practices among participants
• a venue for city-to-city cooperation in building resilience in cities by integrating disaster risk principles into local climate change adaptation plan

Learning objectives

Participants will:

• understand the concept of climate change
• understand how climate change and disaster risk affect each other globally, regionally, and locally
• apply UNITAR self-assessment tools to rate and compare each others’ climate change adaptation policies and disaster risk reduction strategies for their local implementation
• understand the roles of city governments and other stakeholders in adaptation to climate change
• be able to find ways to cooperate with other participating cities

Content and structure

The workshop contents are composed of the following:

• Introduction to climate and climate change: the basics
• Climate change and disaster risk as global, regional, and local threats
• Integrating disaster reduction principles in our own action to tackle climate change: preparedness, response, recovery, and reduction
• Republic of Korea’s national climate change adaptation master plan
• Local and regional cooperation towards ‘global resilient cities’
• A review of challenges and lessons learned in implementing policies