Climate change and disaster risk reduction

The objective is to better understand the relationship between how efforts to reduce climate and disaster risks and the potential for integration. Insights from this analysis may be useful in developing new policy frameworks to manage risks from climate change and variability, in particular the successor to the Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA).

Underlying the analysis is a risk-based approach to the management of climate variability and change, which can help to bridge the divided between adaptation and disaster risk reduction. A risk management approach is also useful for considering how climate change mitigation policies might affect the impact of disasters on people.

The authors do not argue for merging adaptation and disaster risk reduction into a single domain of action – this is neither realistic, given many practical constraints, nor desirable, since they continue to serve distinct purposes and must therefore be allowed their own policy and practice spaces to operate. Instead, they identify ways for climate and disaster risk reduction to work better together, and for future policy action to promote successful coordination.

Download the background paper (PDF, 919kb)