Category: International processes supporting natural hazard management

Posts focusing on the big picture

Categories
International processes supporting natural hazard management Forecasting natural hazards Local natural hazard management Natural hazards blog posts

Troubling words and challenges in the Sendai Midterm Review

This week, from 18-19 May 2023, the High-Level Meeting of the Midterm Review of the Sendai Framework will be held in New York, organised by the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR).  The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction is an agreement that all of our countries have signed up to in order to substantially reduce global disaster risks and losses.

Image summarising Sendai goals
Overview of Sendai goals (source: UNDRR)

Also this week, a severe tropical cyclone, ‘Mocha’, hit the border region of Myanmar and Bangladesh, an area of particular vulnerability due to massive refugee camps and low-lying land.  Early reports of the death toll suggested that the impact had been much less than feared (in part due to the several days warning given by both the Myanmar and Bangladesh meteorological agencies and the mobilised response), but hundreds of thousands have people have still been left homeless.

And also this week, disaster preparedness and response has been a major issue in a Presidential election in Turkey, the Australian Government has announced a major restructure of national flood monitoring and warning arrangements, and a year 11 student died in a caving tragedy in New Zealand that occurred while the area was under a rain warning.

It’s fair to say that disasters, large and small, are never far away from the headlines in any part of the world.  Consequently, the discussions in New York this week, and the wider work of disaster risk reduction, matter greatly.

Link to report of midterm review of Sendai

So, where are we at, half-way through Sendai?  Earlier this year, the UNDRR released the Report of the Midterm Review of Sendai.  And, while it has lots of good news to report, it’s a far from rosy report, as highlighted in the Foreword:

“However, at the midpoint of the implementation of the 2015 agreements, progress has stalled and, in some cases, reversed. This has resulted not only from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, but also from short- versus long-termism, weakened multilateralism, disconnects between the real and the financial economies, rising inequality, and barriers between risk science, perception and risk-informed decision-making. Risks are being created and accumulating faster than our ability to anticipate, manage and reduce them, and when those risks are realized as shocks or disasters, they bring increasingly dire consequences for people, livelihoods, society and the ecosystems on which we depend.”

The report discusses the mixed progress against the goals of the Framework, the challenges encountered (including the grim lessons from COVID), and then lays out some strategic perspectives and recommendations, sprinkled with more less than cheerful phrases:

“The complexity of global catastrophic risk is overwhelming conventional governance systems, which were designed to address incremental environmental and social changes, rather than non-linear processes and complex interactions between drivers of risk and the irreversible impacts of breaching planetary boundaries.”

“With growing uncertainties and increasingly complex risks, amplified by increasing disaster impacts and losses, belief in our collective ability to achieve the 2030 Agenda appears to be waning.”

At the meeting this week, delegates will consider a draft political declaration coordinated by co-facilitators (from Australia and Indonesia). Fully charged and armed with the groundwork behind the review, the draft doesn’t pull any punches:

“We express deep concern at the increasing frequency and intensity, as well as the number and scale of disasters and their devastating impacts, which have resulted in massive loss of life, food insecurity and famine, biodiversity loss, water-related challenges, increased displacement, humanitarian and development needs and longterm negative economic, social and environmental consequences, especially for those in vulnerable situations throughout the world, and which are undermining progress towards sustainable development, the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the achievement of its Sustainable Development Goals, in particular for the least developed countries, small island developing States, landlocked developing countries and African countries, as well as middle-income countries facing specific challenges.”

The draft declaration renews and updates calls for action on the four Sendai priorities: 1) Understanding disaster risk, 2) Strengthening disaster risk governance,  3) Investing in disaster risk reduction for resilience, and 4) Enhancing disaster preparedness for effective response and to “Build Back Better” in recovery, rehabilitation and reconstruction.   In support of that last priority, the declaration also highlights the UN Early Warnings For All initiative and calls for universal coverage of multi-hazard early warning systems. 

Live streams of the meeting sessions on Wednesday 17- Friday 19 May (New York time) are available here.  Country reports, regional reports, UN reports,  thematic studies, and other contributions are also available as part of the meeting documents.

It’s easy to see UN processes as remote, inaccessible, and ineffective.  But the vital work of the world’s disaster risk reduction community affects us all, and includes us all – nothing globally agreed can occur without local hands making it work.  The first step to making progress on global disaster risk reduction is to make sure we’re all on board.  Accessing Sendai processes is as easy as clicking a link and then considering how to help make it happen.  

Categories
Natural hazards blog posts Forecasting natural hazards International processes supporting natural hazard management Local natural hazard management

Tonga’s Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai eruption reinforces the value of multi-hazard early warning systems

Tongan Geological Services Staff watch the eruption on 14 January 2022
Tongan Geological Services Staff watch the eruption on 14 January 2022 (Tongan Govt)
Staff from Tonga's Geological Services Unit on site on 14 January 2022, one day before the major 15 January eruption (published by Tonga GSU)


It’s too early to post-analyse the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai eruption. For one, we don’t know whether the eruption itself is finished. But mainly, the real work is still just beginning to understand and respond to what has happened. Tonga is still assessing the impacts, urgent relief operations are just getting into gear, operational scientists and emergency management professionals are still in the thick of things, and much of the Tongan community is still anxiously waiting for news.

And yet, since the whole world has been talking about something other than the pandemic, it’s probably a really good time to say some things that can be said now. Here are five things that I think will hold true after the wash-up.

1.      The quality of remote sensing observations has been astonishing. At least four operational geostationary weather satellites (from Japan, the USA, Korea, and China) observed the eruption from their respective positions 36000 km above the equator, tracking the eruption in real time and with multichannel imagery at resolutions of around 1 km and every 10 minutes. At least one of these satellites (NOAA’s GOES-17) captured part of the peak phase of the eruption at 1-minute intervals, with a likely record cold cloud temperature of -105.18 C. Meanwhile, other instruments on a variety of satellites tracked the stratospheric gas (and ash) clouds, and measured the maximum height of the column (at least 35 km at time of writing, twice as high as a tropical thunderstorm tends to get). The observations are so much better than during the largest and highest (40 km) eruption so far recorded on satellite, Mount Pinatubo in 1991. At that time, the Japanese GMS-4 satellite had imagery at hourly intervals and single-band infrared resolution at 5 km, which was fantastic for its time. Had we had the current quality of imagery back then, we would have seen so much more.

Data like this doesn’t just happen. The work of the remote sensing and international meteorological community to steadily develop satellite instruments and techniques, and to share the data with neighbours has been incredible, passionate, and very, very fruitful. Launching a satellite is a major enterprise, but the pay-off for the world’s community is enormous.

Image showing eruption aerosols at high altitude over Australia
above: OMPS Limb Profile plot showing part of the leading edge of the cloud at 35 km altitude over Australia on 17 January 2022. Ghassan Taha / NASA

2.      Lives were saved on the ground through warnings and response. We’ll hear much more about what went right, and what went wrong. This was the kind of event that nobody wants to have to deal with in their lifetime and must have been (and continue to be) very stressful for Tonga’s professional warning and emergency management community. However, we know that both the Tongan Meteorological Service and Tonga Geological Services were actively distributing information and the public were highly attuned to the eruptions in the days leading up to the 15th, with a tsunami warning issued on the 14th and then another warning and a mass evacuation on the 15th. Of course, there will be things that could have been improved, but, like any such extreme event, this is an opportunity for us to pause, admire, and be grateful for the job that the warning and response community do all day and night across the world.

3.      Ground and sea observations matter.  Operational tide gauges, deep sea buoys, barometers, upper-air soundings and the like all played their part in tracking the tsunami and forecasting the path of the ash and gas cloud. But there is much more that can be done. Many of the regions’ active or potentially active volcanoes are poorly monitored, if at all. Meteorological observational networks are patchy at best through the region, a situation that directly affects the quality of weather forecasting in the rest of the world. Sustainable, long-term solutions are needed in this space, such as the recently launched Systematic Observations Financing Facility, a global multi-agency effort to spread the load of taking weather and climate observations.  How will we implement this effort successfully? How will we eventually ensure that all other needed earth system observations, including marine and seismic observations, are sustainably taken and their data shared?

4.      Multi-hazard early warning systems shouldn’t be just talk. Through the UN Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030, we, the people of the world, have signed up to a target to ‘substantially increase the availability of and access to multi-hazard early warning systems and disaster risk information and assessments to people by 2030’. That’s pretty soon, and a multi-hazard event like this volcanic eruption shows us how far we have to go. Our tsunami warning systems are focused on earthquakes, not volcanoes, although the volcanic risk has been known since at least when the 1883 eruption of Krakatau killed 36,000 people. Countries around the Pacific Rim worked hard to make their systems work in this event, but there is much work to do. Our volcanic ash system for aircraft, the International Airways Volcano Watch, operated during this event and has come a long way since its inception in the 80s, but there is no global equivalent for the sea and the ground, with countries largely left to their own devices other than through bilateral partnerships. There’s a lot more we could do to support the world’s volcanologists to help achieve a functional global set of multi-hazard early warning systems. Even relatively mature warning systems, such as tropical cyclone (hurricane, typhoon) warning systems, suffer from inconsistent definitions and approaches between countries. To handle every natural hazard event seamlessly, we’ve got a lot of connecting up and data sharing between disciplines, countries and systems to do.

5. Investments into these areas are worthwhile, no matter how you measure them. Everybody knows that it’s good diplomacy to help your neighbours. However, if you do it well (genuinely helping them in long term partnerships rather than dumping a bunch of useless gear), the benefits can flow far beyond your mutual borders.  This is particularly true for monitoring, forecasting, and warning for natural hazards. Typically, for example, investments into meteorological services have a return of around ten dollars for each dollar invested. However, strategic investment in areas that need it can yield much more – for example a recent World Bank study conservatively estimated a global benefit to cost ratio of over twenty-five for investing in surface meteorological observations in data-sparse regions such as the Pacific.  One under-appreciated fact of meteorology is that, if observations are improved anywhere in the world, the whole world benefits, since everything in the atmosphere is inter-connected. Taking and sharing better observations in the SW Pacific, for example, would directly improve weather forecasts across the region and create at least several hundred millions of dollars per year in annual benefits.

Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai dramatically underlined all of this for us. As the atmospheric shock waves continue to ring around the world, as we start to look at how the tsunami travelled across the oceans, and as we start to respond to Tonga’s needs, we have been reminded that, just like in a pandemic, we really are all in this together.   And, as we grieve for the victims of this disaster and support the relief effort, there are also plenty of longer term things to do in response.

(first published on LinkedIn on 19 January 2022)

Categories
Climate change International processes supporting natural hazard management Natural hazards blog posts

No highlights in global climate update

WMO State of Climate
WMO State of Climate report cover image

This week, the World Meteorological Organization has released the latest State of the Global Climate report. And, like any good report, there’s a key messages section for decision makers and casual readers, titled ‘Highlights’. That’s perfectly good English, but it’s also the wrong word, because in another sense, there are no highlights in the list. There are lowlights, appallings, and diabolicals. Here’s the list:

  • Concentrations of the major greenhouse gases, CO2, CH4, and N2O, continued to increase despite the temporary reduction in emissions in 2020 related to measures taken in response to COVID-19.
  • 2020 was one of the three warmest years on record. The past six years, including 2020, have been the six warmest years on record. Temperatures reached 38.0 °C at Verkhoyansk, Russian Federation on 20 June, the highest recorded temperature anywhere north of the Arctic Circle.
  • The trend in sea-level rise is accelerating. In addition, ocean heat storage and acidification are increasing, diminishing the ocean’s capacity to moderate climate change.
  • The Arctic minimum sea-ice extent in September 2020 was the second lowest on record. The sea-ice retreat in the Laptev Sea was the earliest observed in the satellite era.
  • The Antarctic mass loss trend accelerated around 2005, and currently, Antarctica loses approximately 175 to 225 Gt of ice per year.
  • The 2020 North Atlantic hurricane season was exceptionally active. Hurricanes, extreme heatwaves, severe droughts and wildfires led to tens of billions of US dollars in economic losses and many deaths.
  • Some 9.8 million displacements, largely due to hydrometeorological hazards and disasters, were recorded during the first half of 2020.
  • Disruptions to the agriculture sector by COVID-19 exacerbated weather impacts along the entire food supply chain, elevating levels of food insecurity

Digging further into the report, there are other little shockers. Did you know last year’s ozone hole, which should be a solved problem, was one of the longest-lasting and deepest since monitoring began? That oxygen minimum zones are expanding in the ocean? (There’s a helpful reference to a paper entitled ‘Spreading Dead Zones and Consequences for Marine Ecosystems’ in this section, presumably to lift the mood.)

Figure 18 (below) is particularly sobering, as it summarises the impact of some of the climate change risks on the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Ecosystem collapse, anybody?

Figure 18 from the State of the Global Climate Report 2020 – selected climate change-related risks to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Despite all this, there are things that we should be grateful for. In particular, we should be grateful to the world’s climate scientists and to all who are working to try and do something about climate change. Amongst the depression of the job, the active opposition, the policy arguments, and the din of it all, these folks continue to do their jobs in the hope and belief that we can collectively turn this ship around. We have no choice but to try. Out of respect to our climate scientists, we also need to read and understand this report.

Categories
International processes supporting natural hazard management

Even during the Cold War: the intoxicating possibilities for better data for natural hazards.

WMO flyer for data conference

This week, a landmark global conference was held for natural hazard management. The four-day World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Data Conference attracted over 1800 registrations and was held in a fully online format, with participants from all over the world despite a schedule that strongly favoured European and African time zones.  

Data and the miracle of meteorology

So why was a conference on such a dry subject as ‘data’ so important for natural hazards management, and why are WMO the critical drivers?  It comes back to the miracles of science and diplomacy that drive weather services.  Modern meteorology, including related fields such as oceanography and hydrology, rests on three pillars:

  1. The near-simultaneous and free exchange of observational data around the world
  2. Our scientific ability to analyse that data, understand the current situation, and predict what will happen next
  3. The supercomputing advances that enable us to do that work in real time and share the results with each other.

It’s difficult to understate the magnitude of what has been achieved using this approach.   In meteorology, we can now make forecasts of what will happen at a location more than a week in advance, making more probabilistic forecasts of how months and seasons will turn out, and making long-range climate predictions based on observations, physics and computing.  The skill of these forecasts keeps improving, just as science and computing keep improving, and that directly results in longer-range and more accurate predictions of weather-related hazards for communities, meaning more lives are saved and less property is lost to disaster.  In the field of recent human achievements, this comes into the ‘outstanding’ category.

But all of this rests on data, and useful collection and exchange of data does not just happen – like any good, productive and beautiful garden, it needs constant care and attention.  WMO and its predecessor, the International Meteorological Organization, have coordinated and regulated the international exchange of observations and other meteorological data for the last 150 years.

Graphic shown by the ECMWF of the current state of surface pressure observations around the world. Pink and green show normal or above expected observations receipt, red and black are coverage gaps. As noted on the graphic, some areas have been stagnant or have reduced their coverage since 1995, whilst the resolution of the models that use these data have increased by factors of 1000- 10000.

The need for change

Let’s go a bit corporate.  WMO has a strategic vision, to:

“By 2030… ..see a world where all nations, especially the most vulnerable, are more resilient to the socioeconomic consequences of extreme weather, climate, water and other environmental events; and underpin their sustainable development through the best possible services, whether over land, at sea or in the air”.

This is supported by the WMO Strategic Plan, which includes objectives such as:

  • Objective 1.1 Strengthen national multihazard early warning/alert systems and extend reach to better enable effective response to the associated risks.
  • Objective 2.2 Improve and increase access to, exchange and management of current and past Earth system observation data and derived products through the WMO Information System (WIS). The useful shelf life for observations accessed through the WIS is unlimited. Atmospheric composition, climate, hydrological and oceanographic observations from all times will need to be continuously available and accessible for research, climate monitoring, re-analysis and other applications.
  • Objective 2.3 Enable access and use of numerical analysis and Earth system prediction products at all temporal and spatial scales from the WMO seamless Global Data Processing and Forecasting System (GDPFS).  Major weather patterns are routinely predicted more than a week ahead, tropical cyclone landfalls are predicted accurately several days ahead, and even small-scale severe weather with high local impact is often forecasted with enough lead-time to mitigate its impact. WMO will further promote the development of Earth system Prediction, facilitate the use of cascading seamless system of numerical models operated by centres around the world and coordinated through WMO to enhance national forecasting capabilities of all Members.

You can’t do this without a modern approach to data, and the data landscape has been evolving rapidly along with the details of the mission.  As noted on the conference website:

‘Since the establishment of WMO in 1950, the activities of the organization have expanded into areas such as atmospheric composition, hydrology and space weather, leading to a holistic approach to Earth system modelling and prediction being adopted as a strategic priority of the organization. In parallel, the explosive growth in demand for weather, climate and other environmental data from all sectors of society has led to a dramatic increase in the involvement of entities outside the traditional group of WMO National Hydrological and Meteorological Services in monitoring and prediction efforts.’

New functions, many public and private organizations involved, lots of data – in some ways this sounds like a nightmare to manage, but an alternative way to think about is that it’s an intoxicating mix, because there is so much that can be achieved.

Cold war cooperation

The early highlight of the conference was undoubtedly the keynote speech by Australian Professor John Zillman, a former President of WMO and former long-serving Director of the Bureau of Meteorology in Australia.  Professor Zillman outlined the incredible achievements discussed above, taking us back to the 1800s for the pre-history, and reminding us of an extraordinary Cold War event:

‘All of the accumulated experience and wisdom of the founding fathers of WMO and the successful implementation of the IGY was built into the September 1961 proposal from US President Kennedy to the United Nations that meteorology should lead the way in international global cooperation in the peaceful uses of outer space; in the responding General Assembly Resolution of December 1961 (Zillman, 2013); and especially in a remarkable March 1962 exchange of letters (Edwards, 2010) between President Kennedy and Soviet Premier Krushchev through which the US and USSR agreed to joint establishment of an operational weather satellite observation system to support the provision of meteorological services for all nations:

• Kennedy to Krushchev (7 March 1962) Perhaps we could render no greater service to mankind through our space programs than by the joint establishment of an early operational weather satellite system. Such a system would be designed to provide global weather data for prompt use by any nation. To initiate this service, I propose that the United States and the Soviet Union each launch a satellite to photograph cloud cover and provide other agreed meteorological services for all nations. 4

• Krushchev to Kennedy (21 March 1962) It is difficult to overstate the benefit which could be brought to mankind by organising a world weather observation service with the aid of artificial earth satellites. Precise and timely weather forecasts will be another important step along the way to mans’ conquering of nature, will help him still more successfully cope with natural calamities and open up new prospects for improving the well-being of mankind. Let us cooperate in this field, too.’

Professor Zillman also noted the great leap of faith in WMO adopting the current policy on free exchange of data, known as Resolution 40, in 1995. The resolution was build on a fragile consensus rooted in the ‘deep-seated belief in the goodness of international cooperation in meteorology than of any particular line of legal or economic argument’, and ‘few of those who rose in standing ovation at its adoption knew how we were going to make it work.’

Cooperation for the greater good does not naturally happen. It requires risks, demands faith in the better parts of human nature, and takes a great deal of work. For anybody concerned at the current state of the world, take comfort – if Krushchev and Kennedy could find that common ground, we can be inspired to find our own ways to make a difference.

The work ahead

Over the rest of the conference, we did indeed get to hear of the amount of work being done by the international community, including government, non-government, and volunteer work, and including the results of preparatory workshops to the conference.  Many presentations and posters showed us the societal value and impact created by sharing observations, and many showed us the challenges still to be faced.  Despite the progress made, particularly in satellite observations, there are still enormous gaps in our current observations networks. Bold proposals have been forward to address this ongoing issue, such as the WMO Systematic Observations Financing Facility.  A new WMO Resolution, provisionally known as Resolution 42, is being drafted to update Resolution 40 and companion resolutions.

The planned Systematic Observations Financing Facility, a critical initiative to sustainably close data gaps in observations (source: WMO).

The Conference outcome material captures the key moments of the conference.  For the perspective of anybody involved in natural hazards, this work is important.  For those outside the meteorological and hydrological domains, it may all seem less immediate because of WMO’s traditional focus on weather, climate and water and the dry nature of navigating through UN processes.  However the principles and challenges discussed this week apply across the board, and one of those future challenges is to have us all sharing data seamlessly across disciplines, in support of truly integrated Multi Hazard Early Warning Systems.  That means that seismologists, volcanologists, fire specialists and others will eventually benefit from all of this hard work.  And it will be hard – we all know that there are no simple fixes when it comes to the sustainable operation of reliable observation networks across the world.

The value of meteorological and hydrological services is generally estimated at around the 10:1 mark (ie for every $1 invested there is around $10 of societal benefit). Achieving that number, or, preferably much more than that number, requires discipline, including investment in observations that are useful, sustainable and shared. The greater the discipline, the better the outcomes and the more attractive the investment when compared to other priorities. What’s at stake here is a new global best practice for making and sharing observations that make a difference, with an extraordinarily high net societal benefit. It’s worth the effort of getting that right.

Categories
International processes supporting natural hazard management

Giving the United Nations some love

Graphic asking whether we should love the UN

“Remember the words of Taine: “for a young person the world always seems a scandalous place”. Later in life, the world seems only to be an imperfect place which can be worked on here and there. I’m told that finally, in old age, the world becomes either infinitely amusing or infinitely annoying — according to one’s temperament.”
Frank Moorhouse, Grand Days

“if it didn’t exist, we would have to invent it”

It must be tough working in public relations in the United Nations.  For an organisation created by some giants of the 20th century in Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin, it sometimes comes under an extraordinary level of attack from some of their successors.  It simultaneously has its hands tied on critical issues whilst being regarded with suspicion by those who are worried about global conspiracies.  And of course, it has its many imperfections. Former United States Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was fond of joking that the United Nations ‘is a little bit like an organization run by a board of directors of 193 countries, or people, who want to get their son-in-law a job.’

Yet, as the saying goes (also quoted by Albright), ‘if it didn’t exist, we would have to invent it’.  Anybody who has watched with alarm the rise of new nationalist movements around the world, become concerned about the state of the environment, or participated in the global struggle against the current pandemic, would agree the need for a way to sort out our various issues, lest we fall into the cynicism described by Moorhouse in his book on the League of Nations above.

If we believe that there should be something like the United Nations in the world, and we want that body to work well in the interests of peace and prosperity, we need to be literate enough to sensibly discuss it. At the very least, when in a ‘what have the Romans ever done for us?’ discussion about the United Nations, we should have something to hand. But where to start? The United Nations is neither simple nor united.  Nor, if we consider the complexity of the world and the problems that we would like to solve, is it ever going to be.  Reaching a meaningful, practical, and enduring global consensus on any one issue takes a lot more work than yelling at everybody in English until they acquiesce.

Some essential United Nations agencies

United Nations organisational chart
The ‘simplified’ United Nations org chart, with the five agencies discussed here highlighted.

Everything on the United Nations org chart is worthwhile and deserves attention.  But since this blog is focused on natural hazards, let’s just look at five of the many bits of the United Nations that are relevant for us to be able to deal sensibly with natural hazards, and let those parts speak for the whole.

Firstly, why do we need to deal with natural hazards internationally, rather than let every country look after itself?  With the overwhelming nature of natural disasters and the inequities in capabilities between countries, it’s undesirable and inefficient to approach disasters piecemeal – it’s far better to work together to face these hazards together.  And it’s much cheaper in both money and lives to anticipate and mitigate the effects of hazards rather than pick up the pieces of a disaster afterwards.  Somebody must do the hard work of organising that. Enter the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (created in 1999), which currently oversees the implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030.  The Sendai Framework captures four priorities for action and seven targets – it’s suitably ambitious in scope and challenging in implementation.

An even stronger argument for international cooperation is provided by the agencies that coordinate safe international travel.  The International Maritime Organization (founded 1948) and International Civil Aviation Organization (founded 1944) are two specialized United Nations agencies that deal with transport through international oceans and international skies respectively.  The International Maritime Organization inherited the critically important International Convention for the Safety of Life At Sea, which was first passed following the sinking of the Titanic in 1914, and the International Civil Aviation Organization looks after the (Chicago) Convention on International Civil Aviation.  Both modes of transport are highly vulnerable to natural hazards, and in both areas, having national differences in handling these hazards would be frustrating and inefficient at either end of a journey and would be nonsensical in international waters or airspace.  Consequently, the patient work of these agencies has served to directly strengthen safe travel by air and sea and has had flow on impacts to the way that everybody operates within their own countries.  When aircraft fly overnight across the world and avoid dangerous weather systems on the way, they are using standardised, coordinated information about those weather hazards from around the world.

Organising global weather forecasts

Which leads us to the piece de resistance of international cooperation – the extraordinary teamwork between nations organised by the World Meteorological Organization (established in 1950 as a successor to the International Meteorological Organization, itself founded in 1873).  In meteorology, it is physically impossible to make a meaningful weather forecast beyond a couple of days without the real time sharing of observations across borders.  The World Meteorological Organization coordinates the free exchange of observations, forecasts, standards, and underlying science around the world, and has done so since well before the advent of modern supercomputing and communications.  It’s due to this work, the relentless advance of science, and the dedication of the broader meteorological community around the world that we now have generally accurate forecasts for many natural hazards a week or more out, and now even skilful seasonal forecasts. In the world of preventing natural disasters, this gives us an enormous edge, and it would be impossible without United Nations processes.

For a fifth agency, we should mention the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. With such a broad remit, you would expect that many aspects of natural hazard management are supported in some way by the scientific and other activities undertaken, and that’s the case. But in one area in particular, the organization has really stepped up specifically – the coordination of international tsunami warning arrangements undertaken by the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission in collaboration with other partners.

Natural disasters cost us approximately $3 trillion United States dollars over the past twenty years, dwarfing the budget of the above agencies (the World Meteorological Organization, for example, has a budget of around $70 million annually). The work of United Nations agencies is only a part of addressing this, but it’s a critical part, because without the coordinating role played by these agencies, it would be hard to get much done at all.  Our weather, climate and ocean forecasts would be far less accurate or effective, our travel by air or by sea much more dangerous, and our communities far more exposed.

That said, for the overwhelming majority of us who do not work with international agencies, the world of the United Nations can feel highly inaccessible and unrelatable, as is the case outside any enormous bureaucracy.  This is probably the only article that you will ever read about the United Nations that does not contain any acronyms, and learning the acronyms is just the start.  But ultimately, the workforce of United Nations agencies is composed of ordinary people from all over the world who generally want to make a real difference, and they are supported by many passionate volunteers and by taxpayers from all over the world.  It’s complex, it’s imperfect, and it can be frustrating, but it’s our United Nations.

And this brings us to the point of this article.  Because of the gaps and imperfections in the system and our own lack of understanding, it’s completely possible for us to fail to properly connect United Nations processes to what we do in our own countries.  If that’s the case, we’re missing an opportunity and wasting some of the money that our community puts into the system. The more that we can make the United Nations system work for us, the better value our investment will be and the better the societal outcomes.  We don’t have the option of sitting back and criticising.  In whatever field we work in in preventing natural disasters, we should know how United Nations processes interact with that field and, as much as possible, how to navigate them and improve them.  That’s not easy work, but it’s the necessary work to get the job done properly, and it will make a difference in making our world better.