KATHMANDU: Minister for Foreign Affairs Shishir Khanal has said that an effective early warning system is necessary to minimize the loss of life and property due to disasters caused by climate change.
He made the remarks while addressing a high-level event on ‘Early Warning for All: Delivering on Our Promise to Protect All’ on the sidelines of the United Nations Climate Change Conference COP31. He said early warning systems are an important means of saving lives, especially for communities in hilly and mountainous areas. “In the early days of the disaster, Nepal sent hundreds of thousands of SMSes through its early warning system and provided local information to downstream communities, but that was not enough,” he said.
Minister Khanal stressed the need to reduce the gap in observation in the high mountainous region for the development of an effective early warning system. He said that for this, the real-time data collection system, satellite-based remote sensing and monitoring of the cryosphere should be expanded.
He also stressed the need to issue warnings through a medium that can be easily understood by the local language and community, prioritizing forecast-based actions and disseminating information to the last level. He stressed the need to strengthen cross-border data exchange by adopting the perspective from Mt Everest to the sea. Minister Khanal stressed on the need of providing predictable, accessible and grant-based climate finance for climate risk mitigation, underlining the need for international solidarity and collaboration to tackle the growing impacts of climate disasters.
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