UN Summit adopted SDGs integrating Disaster Risk Reduction

This message reports on UN Summit on Sustainable Development held in September which adopted SDGs¹⁾ integrating disaster risk reduction (DRR) as one of areas essential for sustainable development.
ISN members may know this well, but I would like to put here a brief report on the Summit/SDGs, highlighting SDGs -DRR -SABO for record in a column of ISN.

The Summit is one of three high level meetings in 2015 as listed in Table 1(PDF: 41.8KB). Each adopts decisions of historic importance in respective areas as shown in “output” in the table, while pursuing together the over-arching objective: global sustainable development.

The SDGs came from the decision of Rio+20 (2012) to establish a set of new Goals after MDGs²⁾ to complete what MDGs did not achieve and to respond to new challenges including in particular “disaster risk reduction and resilience”. Accordingly UN Summit in September adopted SDGs which integrated DRR in line with Sendai FDRR³⁾ adopted at the 3^rd WCDRR⁴⁾ in March.

The integration of DRR into SDGs at the Summit means that importance of DRR has now been recognized widely including the world top leaders. While MDGs had 8 goals but had none for DRR, the SDGs has 17 goals of which 6 goals relate to DRR, some specifically for DRR (9, 11, 13) and others for different aspects of sustainable development where DRR is essential to achieve respective goals (1, 2, 15) . Ref. Table 2(PDF: 41.8KB).

SDGs will be implemented for 2015-2030 at national, regional and global levels with periodical review of every four years. Global indicators for the review will be developed by international organizations by March 2016.
Each country shall develop national targets and indicators referring to the global ones and taking into account national circumstances, and implement measures and review the progress involving all stakeholders.

DRR is now an essential element for sustainable development, and SABO is an important component of DRR. Keeping this in mind, let us promote sediment disaster risk reduction by implementing the 12 priority actions recommended at the International Sabo Symposium in Sendai, according to our respective position in the country.

Let us see the result of COP 21⁵⁾ on greenhouse gas (GHG) emission to limit future warming to below 2℃ relative to pre-industrial level⁶⁾ to avoid severe, wide-spread and irreversible impacts. IPCC⁷⁾ predicts that, even if this target is realized, climate change impacts will continue for centuries in the future⁸⁾. Whatever decision may be made, roles and the responsibilities of SABO engineers will become greater for DRR and ultimately for sustainable development.

Abbreviation with notes

1)

SDGs: Sustainable Development Goals for 2015-2030

2)

MDGs: Millennium Development Goals for 2000-2015

3)

Sendai FDRR: Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction for 2015-2030

4)

WCDRR: World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction

5)

COP: Conference of the Parties, being held annually by countries which ratified UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) adopted at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 (196 countries as of March 2014).

6)

2℃relative to pre-industrial level: Limit of global warming agreed at COP 16 (2010, Cancun)

7)

IPCC: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. IPCC has been producing Assessment Report (AR) on climate change and adaptation measures, every 5-7 years since 1990. The latest one is 5th report (AR5) released in November 2014.

8)

2.4 of Synthesis Report of IPCC AR(5)

November 2015

Hidetomi Oi

Director, International Sabo Association