Smart management can reduce the risk of climate extremes

More on the IPCC's new report on risk management, from Environment News Service: Climate change has led to extremes such as heat waves, record high temperatures and heavy precipitation over the past 50 years, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says in a new report on managing the risks of extreme events.

Climate extremes in combination with social vulnerabilities and exposure to risks, can produce climate-related disasters - or not - depending on how they are managed, the IPCC says in its Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation, or SREX, released March 28 online. The print edition will be published in May.


The 592-page report cites thousands of scientific studies and has been subjected to three rounds of review by experts and governments to ensure that the findings are based in the underlying scientific and technical information. A total of 220 authors from 62 countries worked on the report, for which 18,784 outside expert and government review comments were received in the three rounds of formal review.

...While some extreme weather and climate events lead to disasters, others do not, the IPCC shows in the report. Policies to avoid, prepare for, respond to and recover from the risks of disaster can reduce the impact of these events and increase the resilience of people exposed to extreme events, At the same time, the IPCC notes, limits to resilience are faced when thresholds or tipping points associated with social and/or natural systems are exceeded, posing severe challenges for adaptation....