Natural Resources Water and Energy
Towards a Smooth Transition Strategy for Bhutan
The document provides the main elements for planning for a smooth transition and adjustment to the post-graduation phase of Bhutan’s development. It analyses the development trajectory of the country and discusses the implications of graduation and the ensuing loss of international support measures.
Foreword
Nothing undermines sustainable development like disasters. They can destroy decades of progress in an instant. Understanding and managing disaster risk is essential to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.
Food systems and systemic risk
In late 2021 global food prices hit a 10 year high due to a combination of factors including poor wheat harvests in key producing countries and lower food oil production due to labour shortages (Silver 2021; FAO 2021c). Coming after 2 years of wider socioeconomic disruption from the COVID-19 pandemic it was a stark reminder of the systemic risk inherent in global food systems and the intimate connections between food security and the wider global economy. With climate change accelerating the intensity of hazards and increasing volatility in food prices it is imperative to build greater resilience into food systems (UNDRR 2021e).
Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction 2022
The central question for this year's report is how governance systems can evolve to better address the systemic risks of the future. In today’s crowded and interconnected world disaster impacts increasingly cascade across geographies and sectors as the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change are rapidly making clear. Despite progress risk creation is outstripping risk reduction. Disasters economic loss and the underlying vulnerabilities that drive risk such as poverty and inequality are increasing just as ecosystems and biospheres are at risk of collapse. The report highlights that a) the climate emergency and the systemic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic point to a new reality; b) understanding and reducing risk in a world of uncertainty is fundamental to achieving genuinely sustainable development; and c) the best defense against future shocks is to transform systems now to build resilience by addressing climate change and to reduce the vulnerability exposure and inequality that drive disasters.
Systemic risk as a challenge to sustainable development
Disasters climate change and their systemic impacts can undermine all three pillars of sustainable development: social environmental and economic. As evidenced by the COVID-19 pandemic this is occurring more rapidly and more unpredictably than anticipated across multiple sectors dimensions and scales. With only 8 years left to achieve the 2030 Agenda and the Sendai Framework targets progress is not occurring at the pace and scale required. Progress to achieve the Paris Agreement goal to limit global warming to well below 2°C and preferably to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels is also not on track. A failure to meet the Paris Agreement goal will lead to further increases in the intensity and frequency of climatic hazard events and the compounding and cascading disasters they cause.
Addressing biases to increase investment in risk reduction
Why is it that individuals and governments still do not invest enough in DRR despite experience and evidence of its value? Why is there such a gap between the intention to reduce risk and action taken to build resilience despite the availability of scientific data and advice on risk? What are the cognitive biases and financial incentives that work for and against smarter investments in risk reduction?
Advancing risk communication
As the world faces the stark reality of increasing disasters climate change and environmental degradation communicating about reducing and avoiding the creation of new risk is more important than ever before.
Introduction: Rewiring systems for a resilient future
Disaster risk was increasing globally even before the advent of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. More people were killed or affected by disasters in the last 5 years than in the previous 5 years. Intensive and extensive risks are growing at an unprecedented rate. Human action is creating greater and more dangerous risk. Disasters have increasing impacts on communities and whole systems as risk multiplies. Everyone is living downstream of something else. Global impacts become local and vice versa. Impacts also cascade across sectors creating new challenges.
Executive summary
The central question for this Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction 2022 (GAR2022) is how governance systems can evolve to better address the systemic risks of the future. In today’s crowded and interconnected world disaster impacts increasingly cascade across geographies and sectors as the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic and climate change are rapidly making clear. Despite progress risk creation is outstripping risk reduction. Disasters economic loss and the underlying vulnerabilities that drive risk such as poverty and inequality are increasing just as ecosystems and biospheres are at risk of collapse. Global systems are becoming more connected and therefore more vulnerable in an uncertain risk landscape. Such systems include ecologies food systems supply chains economies and social services. Local risks like a new virus in Wuhan China can become global; global risks like climate change are having major impacts in every locality. Indirect cascading impacts can also be significant. For example many countries felt the negative economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic months before ever registering a single case of the disease. Without increased action to build resilience to systemic risk the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals cannot be achieved.
Shifting perceptions on risk
When does linear problem-solving fail and how can people’s decision-making become better informed to understand and manage the systemic nature of risk? Later chapters look at managing risk from the perspective of new conceptual mathematical and computational methods predominantly in network and complexity science. This chapter recognizes that complex problems are not susceptible to simple predetermined solutions and examines the question from a different angle. Focusing on ecological–social risk it aims to look from the perspective of different world-views and knowledge systems about how humans understand and act in the world they inhabit. This is required to explore recognize and move beyond some established habits of mind and to see in new ways that enable human societies to tackle ecological–social risk at the local and planetary scales.
Conclusions
Risk is increasing globally as are the number and costs of disasters. Intensive and extensive risks are growing at an unprecedented rate. Human action is creating greater and more dangerous risk. As risk multiplies it has increasing impacts on communities and also on whole systems. Everyone is living downstream of something else. Global impacts become local and vice versa. They cascade across sectors creating new challenges. If current trends continue the number of disasters per year globally may increase by 40% during the lifetime of the Sendai Framework from 2015 to 2030. For droughts there is a large year-on-year variation but current trends indicate a likely increase of more than 30% between 2001 and 2030. The number of extreme temperature events per year is also increasing and based on current trends will almost triple between 2001 and 2030. While disasters are claiming fewer lives annually they are also costing more and increasing poverty. Economic losses from disasters have more than doubled over the past three decades showing an increase of 145% from an average of around $70 billion per year in the 1990s to over $170 billion per year in the decade ending in 2020.
Preface
As this Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction 2022 (GAR2022) goes to print the world finds itself in some of the darkest days in living memory. The war in Ukraine becomes more devastating every day and COVID-19 has affected every corner of the world. The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report warns that without immediate and deep emission reductions across all sectors keeping global warming below the 1.5°C threshold will be impossible.
Emerging approaches to assessing systemic risk
Networks have become essential to modern living but they are also the physical propagators of systemic risk. Disasters do not need to be on a catastrophic scale to demonstrate the fragility of infrastructure networks and the often-unforeseen consequences of interdependence.
COVID-19 and systemic risk
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected all dimensions of human security including economic food health environmental personal community and political systems (Robles 2022). Although a global pandemic was a known risk the world was not prepared for its direct or wider systemic impacts. Diseases had previously spread from animals to humans including acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) Ebola virus disease Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Zika virus disease. However pandemic preparedness measures were myopic focusing on health system responses not on prevention coordination and leadership or the likely wider effects of a global pandemic (Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response 2021a). A combination of pre-existing vulnerabilities and exposure amplified risk and led to cascading systemic impacts as outlined in the conceptual model in the figure that illustrates a systemic impact web.