Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav attended the United Nations Climate Conference (COP27) in Egypt, on November 7 and said that with climate finance still scarce, climate adaptation in the form of early warning dissemination is essential for safeguarding lives and livelihoods from cascading natural hazards that cause significant losses around the world. 

He was speaking at the U.N. Secretary-General High-Level Round Table to launch the “Early Warnings for All Executive Action Plan”. He stressed that the global pace of climate mitigation is not enough to contain the rate of climate change.

With the intensification of tropical cyclones in the Pacific and the Caribbean, small tropical States have lost 200% of their national income in a few hours. The minister said that such instances could have devastating consequences in countries that do not have sufficient means to cope with them.

“With climate finance still scarce, climate adaptation in the form of early warning dissemination is key in safeguarding lives and livelihoods. ‘Early Warnings For All’ plays a part in not just containing the immediate physical impacts, but also mitigating the far-reaching, long-term socio-economic implications that follow,” the Minister said.

India has been working on strengthening end-to-end early warning systems for all hydro-meteorological hazards, he said.

India is making swift progress in terms of early warning for other hazards such as heat waves, the Minister said. The country has made concerted efforts towards making early warnings impact-based, easily understandable, and actionable by communities over the last few years, he added.