Placing climate change within disaster risk reduction

In late 2007, climate change receive extensive international prominence with the Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change (IPCP) and former US Vice President Al Gore being aware the Nobel Prize for their climate change work. This award focusing exclusively only on climate change, obscured the tireless research and practice of many other dedicated to linking climate change, other climate topics and related environmental management, and sustainable processes. Some of that work emerged for studies, policy and action in disaster risk reduction, which extends for decades. Yes that work, to a large degree, has not been acknowledge by climate change science, even when approaches selected, developed, and applied are similar to previous endeavours.

That mean that climate change policy and action miss out on the long experience from dealing with disasters including climate-related disasters. In many ways, climate change science and policy have been reinventing already existing knowledge, methods and conclusions. To reduce such repetition and to ensure greater connection amongst sustainable topics, this editorial proposes the framing of climate change research to connect to policy more smoothly by placing climate change work within disaster work.