UN International Day for Disaster Reduction is celebrated every year on October 13. The day is marked to celebrate the global culture of disaster reduction. It celebrates efforts to reduce the risk of disasters and tries to promote the culture of becoming climate-friendly to reduce the chances of environmental disasters. It also acknowledges the progress made towards reducing the risk and losses in lives, livelihoods, and health in line with Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-30, which was adopted at the Third UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in Japan in March 2015.
UN Secretary-General, in 2016, launched the “Sendai Seven Campaign” to promote seven targets over seven years. The target for the year 2020 is Target E which is “Substantially increase the number of countries with national and local disaster risk reduction strategies by 2020”.
Impact of disasters
Due to natural disaster, people lose lives every year all over the world. Earthquakes, floods, Tsunamis, droughts, hurricanes or cyclones destroy human lives and assets every year. Recently, in West Bengal in India, Cyclone Amphan destroyed the lives of thousands of people. The brutality of the cyclone was magnified by the fact that it struck at a time when India was already in the midst of a deadly Coronavirus pandemic. There have been numerous such calamities in India and around the world which keeps endangering human lives.
With global environmental organizations constantly warning dire consequences of climate change, a study released by the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction has revealed that disaster-related economic losses globally stood at about $3 trillion in the last two decades. India has been among the top five countries with absolute economic losses of about $79.5 billion between 1998 to 2018.
The US topped the list with $945 billion of disaster-related economic losses during the period, followed by China ($492 billion), Japan ($376 billion) and India ($79.5 billion). At least 91% of all major disasters recorded from 1998 to 2017 were climate-related, recording 7,255 events during the period, showed the report titled as ‘Economic Losses, Poverty and Disasters 1998-2017’, which evaluated total disaster-related economic losses and fatalities in the last two decades.
How UN, governments can place proactive role in reducing environmental damage
Recognising these challenges, UN took the initiative through campaigns and events to spread awareness among the people and governments about the adverse impact of disasters which has been amplified over the years with the increase in environmental damage caused by humans.
Governments need to take a more proactive role in reducing the environmental damage they are causing because of infrastructure development. The recent examples in India such as destroying Aarey forest for metro projects, coastal road projects endangering coastal regions and destroying mangrove forests are some of the cases where developmental activities directly clash with the environment. The recent changes to the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) can also reduce nature's natural way of averting disasters leaving humans vulnerable.
The government, civil society, environment activists, and experts must come together to formulate a policy of sustainable development to reduce the risks of natural disasters before more lives are lost due to man-made disasters.
