Excerpt from World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Press Statement from 4 September 2023.

A new Early Warnings for All Action Plan for Africa is one of the most ambitious and comprehensive initiatives ever launched to save lives and livelihoods on a continent which is regularly exposed to extreme weather and which bears a disproportionate socio-economic cost of climate change.

Space-based information has been used extensively to contribute to disaster response efforts since several decades ago.  To enhance the use of such space-based information, since the year 2001, national space agencies from many countries have joined forces over the years to integrate the International Charter Space and Major Disasters as a mechanism to provide space-based information free of charge to national disaster management agencies and first responders in case of devastating disasters in all regions of the world.

The evolution of disaster risk has become more complex due to the effects of climate change, advancements in technology and infrastructure, and growing anthropogenic pressures. The impending risks have wide-ranging and long-term implications for societal sustainable development. Under current development pathways, the world should prepare to face the possibility of more compounding hazards and complex risk landscapes in the future brought on by biological, technological, natural, and man-made hazards, of which many are interrelated and self-perpetuating.

This ARSET Training will describe climate risk assessment approaches that originate with stakeholder expertise in the fundamental climate vulnerability and exposure of their system. By identifying at-risk assets and the types of climate conditions that drive problematic responses, stakeholders and scientists can co-develop risk information targeting specific climatic impact-drivers and utilizing climate observations and projections sets selected to suitably address those risks.