In "COP28"...an expected decision that saves people before the climate catastrophe

 The United Nations hopes that its initiative to establish an early system to protect the Earth's population from the disasters of climate change will find the necessary response at the "COP28" Climate Summit, scheduled for the United Arab Emirates, next November.

The initiative aims to provide a warning system that protects the planet's population from these disasters by 2027, especially after the disasters that struck many countries with floods, droughts, and hurricanes frequently and with rare intensity during the last five years.

The Director of Services of the United Nations World Meteorological Organization, Johan Stander, has previously said that this initiative depends on the fact that the life of anyone endangered by environmental disasters can be saved.

An ambitious initiative

Environmental expert Ayman Kaddouri describes to "Sky News Arabia" the international initiative as "ambitious", explaining its importance. He continues:

The idea of ​​establishing early warning systems appeared in 2015 at the Paris Climate Summit, and was included in the recommendations of the conference. The Paris Agreement called on the states parties and members of the United Nations, which are about 193 countries, to ratify it.

Unfortunately, the Paris summit was marred by the reluctance of major industrialized countries to sign the agreement, which could have moved the issue of climate change towards better scenarios than the world witnessed during the last five years.

Then, at the Glasgow Summit 2021 and the Sharm el-Sheikh Summit 2022, the United Nations again called for the approval of the early warning plan, and the response this time was greater. What prompted the United Nations to assign an organization to continue work on establishing an early warning system and to spread the experiment to all parts of the planet.

The best that this system provides is to suggest immediate measures to evacuate the population to safe areas at least 24 hours before the disaster strikes; This means saving lives and reducing losses to 30-40 percent, thus preventing the occurrence of economic crises accompanying environmental disasters.

obstacles to diffusion

However, despite the vitality and necessity of the initiative, it encounters obstacles, whether related to its capabilities or the capabilities of many countries, including, according to Qaduri:

The early warning system remains within a limited predictive range, and will be limited to disasters resulting from weather disturbances (temperature, storms, and droughts) and hydrological disturbances that cause floods and their sequels.

Almost a third of the world's population, especially the least developed countries, find it difficult to obtain coverage of early warning systems due to their lack of internet coverage and the lack of satellites to link these countries within the system. It relies on sending messages through social media, e-mail, and audio and video broadcasts to the population.

The situation is even worse in Africa, where 60 percent of the population lacks coverage, in 26 countries.

Likewise, the primitiveness of some weather systems in some countries, and the lack of digitization of these systems. The basis of the early warning system is meteorological data, future forecasts and digital archives for more than 50 years.

For all of the above, the environmental expert calls on the meteorological organization to facilitate addressing the challenges of establishing an early warning system during the next five years, which is the time frame set by the United Nations.