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Nature, disasters have no borders: Modi
Natural disasters are becoming more frequent and severe, and need to be addressed with increased funding in disaster resilient infrastructure, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday
Natural disasters are becoming more frequent and severe, and need to be addressed with increased funding in disaster resilient infrastructure, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday.
Highlighting the human impact of these disasters, the PM, in a video message at the Sixth International Conference on Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (ICDRI) 2024, said, “We have witnessed natural disasters are becoming more frequent and more severe. The damage or the cost is usually reported in dollars but true impact on people, families and communities is beyond numbers.”
Earthquakes damage houses rendering thousands homeless, disasters disrupt water and sewage systems putting the health of people at risk, disasters can impact energy plants creating potentially dangerous situations, the PM said.
“These things have a human impact,” he said, as he called on countries to invest in disaster resilient infrastructure.
“After a disaster, the immediate focus is naturally on relief and rehabilitation. But after the initial response, our focus should be on resilient infrastructure. Nature and disasters have no borders. In a highly interconnected world, disasters can have a very widespread impact. The world can be resilient collectively when countries are resilient individually,” Modi said.
The PM’s comments came a day after the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) flagged that Asia remained the continent worst hit by weather, climate and water-related hazards in 2023. While the report did not rank countries within the region, it listed several extreme weather events — heatwaves, floods, and a glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF) — that devastated parts of India last year, to highlight how the country was affected by these.
While floods and storms caused the highest number of reported casualties and economic losses, the impact of heatwaves became more severe in 2023, according to a new WMO report titled: The State of the Climate in Asia 2023.
Referring to the Small Island Developing States at high risk of disasters, PM Modi mentioned a CDRI program for funding projects across 13 such places. He gave examples of resilient housing in Dominica, transport networks in Papua New Guinea, and enhanced early warning systems in the Dominican Republic and Fiji.
He further urged countries to support the most vulnerable like the small island nations. “CDRI focus is on global south. During our G20 Presidency disaster risk reduction working group was formed with financing at the heart of discussions,” he said.
“We have come a long way since 2019 when CDRI was launched. It is now a global coalition of 39 countries and 7 organisations,” PM added.
The PM launched CDRI at the United Nations Climate Action Summit in New York on September 23, 2019.
Speaking at the event, PK Mishra, the principal secretary to the PM, called on countries to invest in resilient infrastructure and close the deficit particularly in the Global South.
“We know that disaster and climate risks are increasing. In the recent past we have seen flooding in Dubai, wildfires in Chile, earthquakes in the Pacific, that have cause enormous infrastructure losses leading to immense human suffering. If we do not build resilience in infrastructure systems, we will be forced to divert more and more funding to recovery and rebuilding after such disasters...this is akin to pouring water in a bamboo basket,” Mishra said.
“Secondly we must recognise that large investments are needed to meet world’s infrastructure needs. CDRI’s research has shown... to reach net zero and strengthen resiliece by 2050, amounts to 9.2 trillion US dollars. If we do not design resilience into our project pipelines, it will be increasingly difficult to achieve the high levels of infrastructure funding needed to close the infrastructure deficit particularly in the global South,” he emphasised.
Mishra said India recognises that closing the infrastructure deficit and doing so in a manner that all new infrastructure is resilient goes hand in hand.
Kamal Kishore, head of the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) and special representative at United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), said for “long term resilience building they would need better risk analytics, investments, more, better and better designed money” for resilience building globally.
According to the World Bank, the net benefits of investing in resilient infrastructure in low and middle-income countries (LMICs) could be $$ 4.2 trillion. Investments will contribute to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as well as catalysing the global climate and disaster risk reduction agendas. Recent estimates of the annual investment required to provide the infrastructure needed, support the SDGs, attain net zero, and strengthen resilience by 2050 amounts to $9.2 trillion of which $2.84 - $2.90 trillion must be invested in low and middle income countries according to CDRI.
