18 February 2023 Tokyo
Thank you very much, Dr. Han,
Your Majesty, the Emperor of Japan,
Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
We know climate change is elevating flood risks in many parts of the world.
We have been experiencing more and more devastating floods throughout the last decades and, unfortunately, due to the already extremely high concentrations of greenhouse gasses in our atmosphere, this is a persistent trend that we will have to cope with for the next generation or two.
No matter how successful we are at mitigating climate change.
Other drivers that elevate flood risk for our societies are suboptimal flood protection and management practices and culture, reckless land use management and the fact that we have ignorantly accumulated ever more value in flood plains.
When we crafted the SDGs 10 years ago, we were aware about climate change, but the full magnitude of its impacts through droughts and floods was not yet prominent enough to allow for factoring explicit flood and drought related indicators into SDG6.
“Okay, Houston, we’ve had a problem here” were Jack Swigert’s famous words abord Apollo13.
In 1970, ingenuity and determined action brought the astronauts back to earth alive.
We are experiencing another problem of similar bearing today with floods, threatening lives and livelihoods of millions.
Actionable solutions, based on science, through solidarity are urgently needed.
Solutions that support sustainable development in the long run, solutions to help transforming our societies.
Three key aspects of such solutions are reflected in the Kumamoto Declaration. Let me recall them:
Resilience: The integration of efforts across scales and sectors, of green and grey infrastructure, of value chain systems, from monitoring through modelling to early warning and the adoption of new policies will help us creating a new quality for our societies whist preserving our natural systems.
Sustainability: The essence of the 2030 goals, requires focusing on water in all development efforts, financially, capacity development wise and politically.
Inclusiveness is the third key to a more water secure future. It involves honest commitment to leave no one behind and to let everybody participate in the definition of flood risk management goals as well as the reduction of vulnerability.
Let me briefly address a few relevant aspects that help to define and implement most appropriate solutions for countering an increasing flood risks in the coming 50 years:
First, it is essential to strengthen transnational alliances, both in reducing vulnerability and strengthening resilience.
We are more effective and quicker when we cooperate.
Solidarity has proven to be a key factor in facing flood disasters.
We have again seen this in Pakistan last year. The further development of the UNECE Water Convention to cover more flood relevant aspects explicitly could be such a solution for transforming away from reactive to preemptive action.
A global water information system, one of the game changers of the March UN Water Conference in New York is a solution to strengthen not only the information base we need to reduce vulnerability but also the solidarity that will make us more resilient.
The Early Warnings For All initiative of the UN Secretary general is the service outlet for warnings that complements the water information system.
Excellencies,
Our session is referring to the post COVID era.
COVID has taught us that the pandemic had a significant impact on flood warning systems.
Sixty per cent of the worlds national hydrological services had issues in measuring the data needed to calibrate and validate flood forecasting systems.
We need to innovate our national and regional systems to make sure we are less vulnerable against external shocks, be these pandemic related, financial or societal.
At the national scale, it is essential to analyze and rethink our policy frameworks.
We can only be less vulnerable and more resilient if we make sure that climate and water related policies are integrated.
The Water and Climate Leaders have given valuable guidance in this regard last year.
One of the results is the first-ever water related COP cover decision.
Flood impact and flood management have the potential to shape the agenda of COP 28 in the United Arab Emirates.
Let us also keep in mind that a well thought and well implemented flood mitigation policy can be of support to natural systems that absorb carbon and thus help us to reduce the forcing of climate change.
Science will be our guardrail to develop and validate all of the aforementioned solutions.
A reinforced, focused global cooperation to validate water action against sustainable development is needed.
The 2016 UN Water Interlinkages report showed the interdependency of the whole SDG framework and the dependency on wise water management.
Now it is time to operationalize science to ensure the many degrees of freedom that characterize development in the water dimension are well understood and interpreted for action.
We are only 5 weeks away from the landmark UN Water Conference.
Japan is one of the Co-Chairs of the conference’s interactive dialogue on climate, environment, and disaster risk reduction.
I am looking very much forward to the Japanese leadership on important aspects of a quality oriented society.
I am also looking forward to the commitments that will enable us to catalyze the global water information system, the early warnings for all initiative and the strengthened science partnerships we all need to face what is coming.
Apollo 13 had 3 astronauts on board.
According to a paper that was published in nature communications last year, we now have 1.8 billion people that are threatened by flood risk.
This is a challenge that we can master with ingenuity and determination.
We can cooperate on solutions that are scientifically validated, actionable and sustainable.
Please join me in New York in March to ensure the world will wake up to this challenge and that we commit to the transformation it takes to land Apollo 13 with 1.8 billion on board safely.
Thank you very much.
