Managing the risks of extreme events and disasters to advance climate change adaptation. IPCC

MARIO N. NUÑEZ; VARIOS

Cambridge University Press

Lugar: New York; Año: 2012 p. 582

978-1-107-60780-4

his Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (SREX) has been jointly coordinated by Working Groups I (WGI) and II (WGII) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The report focuses on the relationship between climate change and extreme weather and climate events, the impacts of such events, and the strategies to manage the associated risks.The IPCC was jointly established in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), in particular to assess in a comprehensive, objective, and transparent manner all the relevant scientific, technical, and socioeconomic information to contribute in understanding the scientific basis of risk of human-induced climate change, the potential impacts, and the adaptation and mitigation options. Beginning in 1990, the IPCC has produced a series of Assessment Reports, Special Reports, Technical Papers, methodologies, and other key documents which have since become the standard references for policymakers and scientists.This Special Report, in particular, contributes to frame the challenge of dealing with extreme weather and climate events as an issue in decisionmaking under uncertainty, analyzing response in the context of risk management. The report consists of nine chapters, covering risk management; observed and projected changes in extreme weather and climate events; exposure and vulnerability to as well as losses resulting from such events; adaptation options from the local to the international scale; the role of sustainable development in modulating risks; and insights from specific case studies.Success in developing this report depended foremost on the knowledge, integrity, enthusiasm, and collaboration of hundreds of experts worldwide, representing a very wide range of disciplines. We would like to express our gratitude to all the Coordinating Lead Authors, Lead Authors, Contributing Authors, Review Editors, and Expert and Government Reviewers who devoted considerable expertise, time, and effort to produce this report. We are extremely grateful for their commitment to the IPCC process and we would also like to thank the staff of the WGI and WGII Technical Support Units and the IPCC Secretariat, for their unrestricted commitment to the development of such an ambitious and highly significant IPCC Special Report.We are also very grateful to the governments which supported their scientists? participation in this task, as well as to all those that contributed to the IPCC Trust Fund, thereby facilitating the essential participation of experts from the developing world. We would also like to express our appreciation, in particular, to the governments of Australia, Panama, Switzerland, and Vietnam for hosting the drafting sessions in their respective countries, as well as to the government of Uganda for hosting in Kampala the First Joint Session of Working Groups I and II which approved the report. Our thanks are also due to the governments of Switzerland and the United States of America for funding the Technical Support Units for WGI and WGII, respectively. We also wish to acknowledge the collaboration of the government of Norway ? which also provided critical support for meetings and outreach ? and the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR), in the preparation of the original report proposal.We would especially wish to thank the IPCC Chairman, Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, for his direction and guidance of the IPCC process, as well as the Co-Chairs of Working Groups II and I, Professors Vicente Barros, Christopher Field, Qin Dahe, and Thomas Stocker, for their leadership throughout the development of this Special Report.