- Extreme weather includes unexpected, unusual, unpredictable severe or unseasonal weather; weather at the extremes of the historical distribution—the range that has been seen in the past.
- As per Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), human induced climate change has likely increased the frequency and intensity of extreme events since pre-industrial times, including heatwaves, extreme precipitation events, marine heatwaves, etc.
Tackling:
- Making L&D a formal agenda item at COP27: This would also require accurately estimating the costs of extreme weather events at a regional level frequently, with numbers on losses and damages.
- Enhancing climate commitments: According to the IPCC, keep warming below 1.5° C requires immediate and deep emissions reductions across all sectors and regions.
- Integrating extreme weather risk management and adaptation into all social, economic, and environmental policy domains.
- Heat Health Action Plans that include early warning and response systems are effective adaptation options for extreme heat.
- Establishing early warning systems and strengthening risk communication between decision makers and local citizens.
- Bridging financing gaps through innovative risk financing instruments like micro-insurance, insurance, reinsurance, and national, regional, and global risk pools.
- Climate-proofing of infrastructure through combination of hard infrastructure-based responses and soft solutions such as individual and institutional capacity building and ecosystem-based responses.