Page 71 - Frontier Technologies to Protect the Environment and Tackle Climate Change

Frontier Technologies to Protect the Environment and Tackle Climate Change

In practice, real-time data generated within a city would feed the relevant set of digital twin models
to analyse the impacts of such weather events in order to develop and test a set of appropriate action
plans. This could, for example, involve placing sensors in the city’s transport network that would
automatically feed real-time data into the digital twin model(s), which would then simulate alternative
routes for the network paths likely to be affected by extreme weather events. 216
Weather and disaster resilience are a particularly appropriate area for using digital twins. Extreme
weather events are increasing in frequency and severity around the globe. WEF’s 2018 report
on ‘Harnessing Artificial Intelligence for the Earth’ reported: ‘In 2016 (alone), the world suffered
772 geophysical, meteorological, hydrological and climatological ‘natural loss events’ – triple the
number in suffered in 1980.’ Its Global Risks Report has also repeatedly identified failure of climate
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change-mitigation, extreme weather and natural disasters as the gravest threats for global business
and industry, as seen in Figure 24.
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Figure 24: WEF Global Risks Report's top 10 risks by likelihood of occurrence [xxiv]

Cities face a growing number of climatic disasters and risks. Two global frameworks address natural
and human-induced disasters, namely the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
(UNFCCC) and the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) Sendai Framework.
Under both frameworks, vulnerability to heat, drought, flooding, earthquakes, typhoon, tsunami and
other natural hazards are to be investigated as part of disaster management planning. This is especially
important given the adverse effects extreme and variable weather can have on food security, as well
as biodiversity.
In addition to these global frameworks, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE)
Convention on the Transboundary Effects of Industrial Accidents (Industrial Accidents Convention) is
an important multilateral environmental agreement and legal instrument for disaster risk reduction.
It assists countries in establishing and improving their policies and measures for the prevention,
preparedness and response to major industrial accidents triggered by natural disasters. UNECE
promotes transboundary and interinstitutional cooperation to improve risk management and disaster
planning, both within and across borders.

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