The President of the World bank Group, Dr. Jim Yong Kim, has tasked the international community to rise up to its challenges to combat climate change which he said is responsible to all the natural disasters across the world.
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In his opening remarks at G20 Joint Press Conference on Disaster Risk Management during the week in Mexico City, the World Bank President said that the international community has a responsibility to document experiences and facilitate knowledge transfer as regards climate change. “But exchanging experience is not enough. ?We have to help people in governments make decisions that will improve resilience far into the future” he noted.
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His words: “Climate change is increasing the danger. ?For example, today's once-in-twenty-years extreme temperatures are expected to occur annually by the end of the century, according to the intergovernmental panel on climate change. The number of once-in-a-lifetime events have increased dramatically over the last decade”
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“As public investment in infrastructure will rise dramatically over the next decades in low- and middle-income countries, we're standing at a crossroads. ?Will growing exposure dramatically increase risk or are we able to act firmly to reduce vulnerability and enhance resilience?”
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Dr. Kim also said that: “The decisions that we make today will determine our long-term resilience to natural hazards and be critical to people's well-being in the short and long term.?By making uninformed decisions, we create new risk in the course of development. ?When we build in hazard-prone areas or fail to apply appropriate building standards, we put people and assets at risk. ?Understanding the risk we face is the foundation of cost-effective prevention measures, but not all risks can be mitigated”
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He pressed further that the international community must also strengthen countries' capacities to respond when disasters occur and ensure that the financial mechanisms are in place to finance response and recovery while protecting the budget.
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He however noted that the World Bank is working with many countries to help further risk financing strategy that is suitable to their needs just as he appreciated the attention that President Calderon, Secretary Meade, and Mexico have given the issue by enabling this discussion at the G-20.
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“I look forward to bringing this discussion together with the G-20. ?Developed and developing countries will have to stand united to build resilience, and international donors have a key role to play. ?Together we can turn these important political commitments into actions to save lives and protect development gains”
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“The disaster risk management can be understood as a matter of life and death, of economic disaster, or prevention, or recovery. We all know that the poor are the most affected when a disaster strikes. So, I want to highlight the attention given to this issue by the government of Mexico” he said.
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Speaking on the huricane sandy in some parts of the United States, Dr. Yong Kim said: “In Washington, we experienced the force of Hurricane Sandy, and we saw the destruction that it caused in the Caribbean and all along the East Coast of the United States. It's a powerful reminder that no country is immune from natural hazards.This is part of a trend we've been witnessing for a decade, a relentless trend that has seen economic losses from disasters more than triple over the past three decades”
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