MedEWSA will be represented at the European Geosciences Union (EGU) General Assembly 2024 on the “Early Warnings for All Initiative: Science Needs for the Global Ambition to Protect Everyone by 2027“. This is an alternative to normal meeting fare with two teams debating controversial topics, each defending an opposing point of view. In this way, informed experts will be able to explain and inform the audience on important topics in a lively and entertaining way.
Announced by the United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres and co-led by the World Meteorological Organization and United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), #EarlyWarningsForAll aims to safeguard everyone on Earth from natural hazards by 2027. However, challenges persist.
Let’s explore advancements needed for impact-focused, people-centered forecasting and warning systems, understanding evolving climate patterns, improving communication strategies, and leveraging artificial intelligence for enhanced operational forecasts.
This debate will be with Andrea Toreti, Carina Fearnley, Michael Staudinger, Ben Webster, Elena Xoplaki, Ilias Pechlivanidis, Monique Kuglitsch and Maria-Helena Ramos.
Let’s tackle these challenges and pave the way for effective #EWS that benefits all.
Session Description
The “Early Warnings for All (EW4ALL)” initiative announced by the United Nations (UN) Secretary General in March 2022 is a ground-breaking effort to ensure that everyone on Earth is protected from hazardous weather, water or climate events through life-saving early warning systems by the end of 2027. Delivering on this call requires global collaboration: the initiative is co-led by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), and supported by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC).
EW4ALL is built around four key pillars:
- Disaster risk knowledge and management
- Detection, observation, monitoring, analysis, and forecasting
- Warning dissemination and communication
- Preparedness and response capabilities
Despite advancements related to weather, water and climate, there are still scientific and technological challenges that need to be addressed to improve the provision of accurate and effective early warnings for a variety of hazards. For instance, advancements are needed to improve impact-based, people-centered forecasting and warning systems and to enhance our understanding of how climate will continue to change and vary to ensure that multi-hazard early warnings are effective in today’s conditions and the future. Research is also needed to better understand how to best communicate warnings and uncertainty to ensure that warnings are understood and acted upon, or to understand how machine learning and artificial intelligence can help set high-quality impact-focused and timely operational forecasts.
In this debate, we will discuss those challenges for scientists working in the field of natural hazards monitoring and forecasting, impacts and disaster prevention, and social sciences. We will discuss how to address them through scientific and technological innovations, enabling this action plan and providing early warnings for all.
More info on the Great Debate is available here.
