The Hyogo Framework for Action is a ten‐year plan that was adopted by 168 countries in 2005. It calls upon international organizations to undertake work to reduce the disaster risk associated with multiple hazards, including extreme climate events. Reducing climate‐related disaster risks is a crucial part of climate change adaptation.
The Cancun Adaptation Framework underscores the important role of disaster risk reduction within adaptation, and it urges Governments to consider the Hyogo Framework for Action in particular. Changing patterns of hydrometeorological hazards associated with climate change are posing challenges with longer‐term strategic planning and investment decisions as history is no longer a good reflection of the future.
Thus, climate analysis tools for assessing changes in severity, frequency, and occurrences of hydro‐meteorological hazards at seasonal, inter‐annual, decadal, and longer climate change time scales need to become available operationally and applied for risk assessment within the economic sectors to support decision‐making at various levels and time scales. United Nations funds, programmes, and specialized agencies have taken action and helped reduce climate‐related risks at regional, national and even local levels.
Disaster risk reduction is one of the four priority sectors of the Global Framework for Climate Services (GFCS), a joint UN System initiative led by the World Meteorological Organization which was adopted at the Sixteenth World Meteorological Congress (Geneva, May‐June 2011).