Australia: ‘New era of disasters’ warrants response rethink
By Georgia Clark
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A targeted, coordinated response from all levels of government is needed to address the scale of devastation that will result from an “increasingly likely” 2 degree rise in global temperatures, says Dr Robert Glasser, former special representative of the UN secretary-general for disaster risk reduction.
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Current Australian disaster responses fail to consider the forecast increase in disasters and the cascading impacts of climate-related disasters, he argued.
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He called for the development of a national strategy for climate change and disaster resilience that quantifies the required departure from business as usual. It should bring together the national strategy for disaster reduction with the Australian national climate risk adaption strategy, he said.
He suggested the disaster risk reduction framework developed as part of the National Resilience Taskforce be used as a foundation to build a broader strategy.
A national resilience committee should be established at the state and commonwealth level, and an action plan developed that includes key indicators of resilience at the different government levels, including incentives to promote investment in resilient infrastructure, Dr Glasser argued.
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