Early Warning Systems Defined - Reducing Disaster: Early Warning Systems for Climate Change - page 91

Since climate change is more of a hazard infl uencer than a hazard, does that
mean that an EWS for climate change in general might not be relevant? Instead,
would it be better to create, EWS for different hazards, each of which factors in
changes to their respective hazards due to climate change as well as due to other
factors? These questions lead to the second point.
Climate change might not be a hazard itself, yet the process could still be warned
about, partly to tackle the causes and partly to deal with the consequences. As such,
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) might serve as a warning
system for climate change by assessing and synthesising climate change science
and indicating actions that are needed based on the science.
The diffi culty with these two points on climate change EWS is that they both
focus on hazards without fully accounting for vulnerability. The previous section
highlighted the importance of using EWS for vulnerability reduction, rather than
expecting EWS to apply to hazards only. If EWS for climate change and other
creeping and non-creeping hazards were created in such a way that they tackled all
vulnerability and contributed to day-to-day development, then by defi nition, all haz-
ards and hazard generators would be encompassed.
As such, there is no need to separate climate change from other hazards and
hazard generators, or to deal with climate change in its own domain, silo, or disci-
pline. Instead, climate change is one aspect of all the potential hazards faced, and
dealing with climate change (climate change adaptation) becomes enfolded within
DRR. After all, DRR by the defi nition given earlier includes all climate change
adaptation activities. Yet DRR itself cannot be isolated and is part of development-
related endeavours, bringing the discussion full circle that EWS need to include
potential climate change impacts—but only to ensure that dealing with climate
change is part of the ongoing community EWS social processes.
An EWS for climate change or climate change-related changes therefore will not
look much different from what most EWS should look like. It will look different
from the form of most EWS today, because an EWS involving climate change is a
social process integrating technical monitoring and information into it. The EWS
will include education and exchange, for example, so that people living on perma-
frost are warned about the potential melting over the next decades and prepare their
communities for it. The EWS will include adaptation to new hazard regimes, so that
atoll communities are warned about potential changes to their freshwater supplies,
coral reefs, and coastlines. They can then begin to act now to shape their communi-
ties in such a way that they will not experience disasters, whether or not the projec-
tions for climate change lead to projected thresholds—or even if climate change
leads to worse thresholds being crossed. It might be that communities decide to
relocate, such as Newtok in Alaska and the Carteret Islands in Papua New Guinea
are doing at the moment. It might be that communities decide to invest in desalina-
tion plants that they can maintain and repair themselves. It might be that communi-
ties take the risk of a major catastrophe, such as a drought or coral reefs dying, and
accept the lethal consequences if one strikes.
The key is that, in theory, an EWS for creeping changes gives more time to plan
a response and to integrate that response into day-to-day life and longer-term