Resilience to extreme weather, a major new Policy Report from the Royal Society
02 December 2014

The Royal Society has published ‘Resilience to extreme weather’. The full report, executive summary and other interactive content are available here. A briefing covering the content of the report will take place at 9.30am on 3 December at the Royal Society.

How do we reduce the impact of extreme weather today while preparing ourselves for future changes? What can we do to build our resilience?

‘Resilience to extreme weather’ investigates these, and other, key questions to help inform important decisions about adaptation and risk reduction that are being made at global, national and local levels.

The report examines the current and future impact of extreme weather on societies worldwide. It contains new maps which combine predicted climate change with demographic changes to show how exposure to extreme weather will change in future. Ways of defending against extreme weather and building resilience to it are also examined. Engineered, ecosystem-based and hybrid defensive approaches are compared before the role of governments, international agreements and metrics, financial regulation and research are considered. The report contains 7 recommendations suggesting how societies can become more resilient to extreme weather.

In 2015, important international agreements will be reached on disaster risk reduction, sustainable development and climate change. This report will help those negotiating and implementing the new agreements to decide what action to take to most effectively build resilience.

The report will be presented and discussed at the  Tokyo Conference on International Study for Disaster Risk Reduction and Resilience in Tokyo Japan from 14-16 January 2015, of which IRDR is one of the co-organisers.

Download the Report here.

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