Discussion forum 3

Climate change and disaster management: resilient cities, reduced risk

Climate change presents new challenges for cities. Floods, storms and droughts have become more severe and more frequent in recent years. This poses a particular threat because informal settlements in city suburbs often sprawl into high-risk areas. Two-thirds of cities with over five million inhabitants are already at least partially situated in coastal or river flood areas.

What risks do cities need to be prepared for and what preventive action can they take to avert them? How can they minimise the consequences for people, industry and infrastructure when extreme natural events do occur? These were the questions at the heart of the workshop. Speakers from the Philippines, Thailand and Japan talked about how their countries managed to deal with the major disasters that struck in 2011. And everyone agreed that in Asian countries in particular disaster management has made great headway in recent years, especially as regards disaster preparedness.

The discussion revealed however that there is still a great need for action. Cities are urgently in need of innovative approaches to disaster management – in emerging and developing countries as in industrialised nations. According to Gerold Reichenbach, Member of the German Federal Parliament and Chair of the German Committee for Disaster Reduction (DKKV) e. V., Germany also faces a number of challenges in the field of disaster management. The forum agreed that stronger cooperation between politics, society and the private sector is imperative here. Business and industry are particularly important partners because they are directly affected by extreme natural events and have to secure their global value chains, from production through to points of sale. Private companies can also develop technological solutions that will allow cities to prepare better in future for the increasing number of extreme weather events.

At the same time, all of those involved in the discussion stressed repeatedly how important it is to involve as many social groups as possible in all of the measures. Urban infrastructure projects should be planned jointly with the population groups that will be affected by them. What is more, only if people generate sufficient pressure will politics and business be moved to take the urgent preventive measures required.

Event format: Workshop
Languages: German, English

Speakers