Tiempo Climate Newswatch

Mega-fires could be contributing to global warming as numbers increase, according to a report from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). "Mega-fires are mainly caused by humans and are likely exacerbated by climate change, but now we suspect they may also in themselves represent a vicious circle that is speeding up global warming," said FAO forestry officer Pieter van Lierop. The report concludes that monitoring of carbon emissions from wildfires is needed to better determine the potential impact on world climate.

"If we know that drought is one of the main contributing factors to the mega-fires, and we know that we're getting to a time of climate change where many parts of the world the climate will become dryer, we can expect a lot more mega-fires than we've had until now," van Lierop warned. "Unless, of course, we look at ways [of] how we can better deal with vegetation of forest and landscape in general by maintaining them in a different way and treating them in a different way," he continued. The report concludes that "the onset of mega-fires should challenge governments around the world to adapt wildfire protection programs to confront causes and contributory factors; not chase symptoms."

Economic losses associated with natural catastrophes have outpaced wealth creation in some regions, leading government representatives to pledge to put disaster preparedness at the forefront of plans to protect communities. "Participants at the Third Global Platform [for Disaster Risk Reduction] have recognized the urgency that we face, and realized clearly that the world needed to act quickly and in concrete ways to make the world safer," commented Margareta Wahlström, the Secretary-General's Special Representative for Disaster Risk Reduction.

The first-ever World Reconstruction Conference, convened by the World Bank, the United Nations and the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery, was held alongside the Global Platform. Participants agreed to develop a global framework for international cooperation in reconstruction financing and technical assistance. The framework would better define roles and responsibilities within clear institutional arrangements, effectively capitalize on the strengths of each stakeholder, clearly place countries in the driver's seat on decision-making and resource allocation, provide in-time relevant knowledge and lessons learned through existing networks of practitioners, assist in establishing robust and transparent quality and result monitoring systems and improve systems and instruments for recovery and reconstruction finance.

Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, has called on governments to accelerate talks on emissions reductions ahead of the next climate change summit in South Africa. "This means confronting the open political question of the future of the Kyoto Protocol, the only agreement today that captures binding commitments by industrialized countries," she said.

Figueres also highlighted the need to design the new climate institutions that will provide adequate and efficient climate support to developing countries, including the green climate fund, the technology mechanism and the setting up of the climate change adaptation committee. She said that, alongside the negotiations, there were encouraging trends, such as a move, even by large economies, towards new policies that promote low-carbon growth and increasing private sector investment in low-carbon business and renewable energy. "So, in Durban," she concluded, "governments need to take further steps to drive both of those very important trends and faster."