Latest news with #disasterresponse
Khaleej Times
9 hours ago
- Climate
- Khaleej Times
UAE's NCM records 6.3 magnitude earthquake in southern Philippines
A powerful earthquake shook the southern Philippines early Saturday morning, June 28, with tremors also recorded by seismic stations in the UAE. According to the National Centre of Meteorology (NCM), a 6.3-magnitude earthquake was detected in the Philippines at 3.07am UAE time. However, in the Philippines, authorities confirmed the tremor as a magnitude 6.1 earthquake that struck off the coast of Davao Occidental at 7.07am local time. The quake prompted residents to evacuate homes as tremors were felt across several provinces. The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) initially measured the quake at magnitude 6.9 but later downgraded it to 6.1. The epicentre was located 85km southeast of Sarangani town, with a depth of 79 km. The quake was tectonic in nature. Despite the intensity of the tremors, Phivolcs confirmed that there is no tsunami threat linked to the seismic activity.
Forbes
a day ago
- Business
- Forbes
Reframing Climate Action: From Managing Risk To Building Resilience
TOPSHOT - Waves break over a sea wall at Cape Town harbour on June 7, 2017, as an intense storm hits ... More South Africa's west coast. - The ferocious storm killed eight people as it pummelled South Africa's west coast on Wednesday, forcing the closure of Cape Town harbour, triggering flash floods and causing extensive damage, authorities said. The weather system which struck on June 6 has damaged buildings, felled trees, left 46,000 homes without electricity and caused travel chaos as flights and rail services were hit by gale-force winds and flooding. (Photo by RODGER BOSCH / AFP) (Photo by RODGER BOSCH/AFP via Getty Images) For decades, efforts across the climate, conservation and development spheres have shared a common aim: to protect people and ecosystems from harm. Over time, as environmental understanding advanced and financial markets became more engaged, risk management has emerged as a dominant framework shaping decisions. Risk proved appealing because it could be measured. Financial actors could quantify, price, hedge, insure, or "de-risk" it to attract private capital. From microinsurance pilots to sovereign catastrophe bonds, risk became the operative language of climate action. Policymakers and institutions built models, systems, and instruments, like early warning networks and climate bonds, around the logic of reducing or transferring risk. But this framing is increasingly inadequate. As the world faces cascading climate, geopolitical, health, and economic shocks, managing risk alone is no longer enough. Nowhere is this more evident than in adaptation, where the gap between needs and funding is starkest. The shift required is clear: resilience, not risk avoidance, must become the organizing principle. From Morality to Markets to Resilience More recently, the dominant framing has shifted toward financial risk and market efficiency, turning climate risk into something to price and disclose, fueling ESG based indices and green bonds. While these tools mobilized capital, they have largely prioritized large-scale mitigation over local adaptation. Resilience now offers a necessary correction to a system overly focused on the avoidance of risk rather than regeneration. It's not a soft add-on but a central strategy for stability and prosperity. Community-driven, locally led adaptation has proven more effective and durable, rooted in lived experience and local knowledge. Yet these initiatives remain sidelined and underfunded by conventional finance models. 'We fundamentally need to change the narrative from aid to empowering people, families, communities and small firms everywhere… to make the decisions for themselves and to get access to the funding they need to make those decisions,' said Sophie Sirtaine, CEO of CGAP, at the launch of Unlocking Critical Finance for Climate and Economic Resilience, a report by The Earthshot Prize with contributions from CGAP and supported by the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth and CGAP. Today's climate finance system focuses heavily on minimizing downside risk, especially for investors. This often results in shifting risk from the private sector to public actors, rather than addressing underlying vulnerabilities. In adaptation finance, this contradiction is sharp: while mitigation absorbs the majority of global climate capital, adaptation receives just 10%, and less than 17% of that reaches the local level. 'Communities most vulnerable to climate impacts are often the least economically secure, and yet remain largely overlooked by private and commercial capital,' said Mehmaz Ghojeh, head of strategic partnerships at Earthshot. Financial norms that emphasize scalability, formal structures, and returns filter out many high-impact, locally led solutions. Even when these efforts are funded, they are often forced to fit into mitigation-style models that overlook their broader public benefits. Despite their impact, investments in resilience, from disaster preparedness to ecosystem restoration, receive no credit in financial ratings or capital markets. As Guido Schmidt-Traub, partner at Systemiq and advisor to Brazil's COP30 presidency, asked at a London Climate Week event on the triple dividend of resilience: 'Why does climate risk lower a country's credit rating, but resilience investment doesn't improve it?' The Unlocking Critical Finance report draws on more than 2,200 innovations nominated to The Earthshot Prize, distilling lessons from a diverse range of locally led, commercially viable, and socially inclusive solutions. One example is Coast 4C in the Philippines, which helps seaweed farmers increase yields while restoring degraded marine ecosystems. The program protects over 5,800 hectares of coastline, cuts 11,200 tonnes of CO₂e annually, and supports nearly 9,000 people—82% of them women—with increased income and access to finance. These are not edge cases but viable models. What unites them is not scale or profitability but local agency, ownership, design, and delivery by the communities who understand the challenges best. As Ghojeh makes clear: 'This is just one of many examples showing that locally-led and commercially viable models are already transforming climate-vulnerable economies.' 'Many of these solutions are led by micro and small enterprises in climate-vulnerable economies, who understand the challenges deeply,' added Payal Dalal, Executive Vice President at the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth. Perhaps the greatest flaw in the risk narrative is its portrayal of vulnerable communities as passive recipients of aid. A resilience approach instead sees them as active protagonists, designing, implementing, and scaling solutions that suit their context. It is increasingly clear that effective adaptation won't scale through traditional government programs or risk-averse financial systems. 'We are still asking how to survive the next crisis. But the real question is, how do we thrive despite it?' said Schmidt-Traub. To truly reframe climate action, we must ask not only 'What could go wrong?' but 'What must go right for people to flourish?' Building a Resilience-Centered Future As Ghojeh points out the solutions already exist, from Coast 4C and Frontier Markets in India to RISCO's digital climate risk tools. What's missing is a system that can identify, fund, and scale them. That requires moving beyond ESG checklists and adopting tools that value long-term resilience outcomes. It means supporting intermediaries that bridge global capital and local innovators. We need financing tools fit for vulnerable contexts, ones that work where traditional systems fail. As Ghojeh puts it: 'The innovations exist. The capital exists. Now is the time to connect the two and scale the solutions that are already building a better future.' The economic rationale is compelling. According to recent research from the World Resources Institue, every $1 invested in resilience could generate 10x return, from avoided losses to increased productivity and social stability. Locally led adaptation delivers what experts call 'triple dividends': reduced climate risk, economic returns, and broader development gains. Achieving that future demands more than new metrics, it requires a mindset shift. One that puts resilience, not risk, at the heart of how we act, invest, and govern.
New York Times
2 days ago
- General
- New York Times
As FEMA Shrinks, a Grassroots Disaster Response is Taking Shape
They were just drills, but each felt urgent and real. A group of volunteers searched a wooded area for someone who had been injured and stranded, ready to provide aid. Then they practiced a river rescue, attaching a rope near the bank to help pull the victim to shore. This was Rescue HQ, a gathering in rural Tennessee last month where the founding members of several newly formed disaster response groups ran through emergency scenarios and discussed how to better coordinate in the chaotic aftermath of a storm or a flood. Groups like this are growing in number — a new model of disaster response taking shape outside of government channels. Many volunteers are deeply religious and have military backgrounds. They're an unequal match for what the government can do, especially when it comes to long-term rebuilding efforts after natural disasters. But with the Trump administration pulling back staffing and funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency — and even pledging to eliminate it — communities may soon rely far more on volunteer help. 'The bigger the gap is in terms of what the government isn't doing, the more we're going to expect from nonprofits and the larger their role is going to be,' said Daniel Sledge, a professor at the University of Oklahoma who has studied disaster relief. 'Whether nonprofits actually have the capacity or the ability to step in and fill in the gaps that, in all likelihood, we're going to be creating is a completely different question.' Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Reuters
3 days ago
- Business
- Reuters
New Zealand draft infrastructure plan outlines need for more hospitals, electricity
WELLINGTON, June 25 (Reuters) - New Zealand on Wednesday released a draft 30-year national infrastructure plan, which highlighted a need for the country to invest more in hospitals and electricity production and to prepare to spend more on responding to national disasters. The plan aims to improve infrastructure preparations and introduce a less politically driven approach to infrastructure investment, which critics say has been impacted by electoral cycles with the stop-start results being costly for large projects. 'We want the National Infrastructure Plan to help build common ground about our areas of need and what is affordable for Kiwis, giving the Government of the day guidance for making decisions about infrastructure,' said Geoff Cooper, chief executive of the New Zealand Infrastructure Commission. The draft plan said the country needed to establish affordable and sustainable funding, make it easier to build new infrastructure, prioritise maintaining current infrastructure and assess the readiness of projects before they are funded. While New Zealand was in the top 10% of the OECD in its infrastructure spend as a percentage of gross domestic product, it was not getting the returns it should, it added. To meet demand, annual capital investment would need to increase from around NZ$20 billion ($12 billion) today to slightly more than NZ$30 billion by the 2050s, according to the plan. The New Zealand government has outlined plans to boost the infrastructure build in the country, and earlier this year hosted an infrastructure investment summit to promote foreign investment in the country's infrastructure. 'The Government is determined to improve New Zealand's infrastructure system and to work alongside the industry and other political parties to establish a broad consensus about what needs to change,' said Chris Bishop, Minister for Infrastructure. The finalised plan is expected to be released at the end of the year and will be discussed by parliament in early 2026. ($1 = 1.6565 New Zealand dollars)
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
SWARM Biotactics Raised €13M to Advance Bio-Robotics From Lab to Field
KASSEL, Germany & SAN FRANCISCO, June 24, 2025--(BUSINESS WIRE)--SWARM Biotactics, developer of bio-robotic systems based on fully controllable living insects for mission-critical operations, has secured €10 million in seed funding, bringing its total raised to €13 million, including a €3 million pre-seed. The round was backed by a consortium of international investors from Europe, the United States, and Australia, including Vertex Ventures US, Possible Ventures, and Capnamic, who was the first investor in the pre-seed round. Several early backers also increased their stakes in the oversubscribed round. UNMATCHED ACCESS FOR CRITICAL MISSIONS SWARM Biotactics is creating a new category of robotics: living, intelligent systems designed for environments where machines can't go—cluttered, denied, and high-risk terrain. Bio-robotic swarms consist of cockroaches equipped with a custom-built backpack for control, sensing, and secure communication—enabling precise navigation and real-time data collection in the most inaccessible places. SWARM delivers highly scalable bio-robotic systems for defense, security, and disaster response. "We're entering a decade where access, autonomy, and resilience define geopolitical advantage," said Stefan Wilhelm, CEO of SWARM Biotactics. "Conventional systems fail where control is needed most—denied zones, collapsed infrastructure, politically complex terrain. SWARM is the first company building an entirely new category of robotics: biologically integrated, AI-enabled, and mass-deployable systems for persistent intelligence in places no drone or ground robot can reach. This funding moves us from deep tech to deployment—delivering the infrastructure democracies need to operate more smartly, more safely, and with total tactical awareness." FROM DEEP TECH R&D TO OPERATIONAL READINESS SWARM will use the new funding to transition from advanced research to field deployment. Priorities include: Launching operational pilots in Europe and North America with defense, national security, and emergency response agencies. Scaling production of proprietary sensor backpacks, neural interfaces, and swarm infrastructure. Expanding its R&D centers and its international go-to-market and engineering hub. Recruiting top talent in insect neurobiology, embedded AI, field robotics, and dual-use system integration. "Our mission is to build a scalable, dual-use intelligence platform that adapts to any terrain, threat, or mission," said Moritz Strube, CTO and co-founder. "This funding round validates the vision—and brings in the right global partners to help us scale." ABOUT SWARM BIOTACTICS Founded in 2024, SWARM Biotactics develops fully controllable bio-robotic systems for defense, national security, disaster response, and industrial inspection. By combining biology with edge AI, swarm intelligence, and secure communications, SWARM delivers real-time data from the world's most inaccessible places. The company is headquartered in Kassel, Germany, with a U.S. subsidiary in San Francisco, California. View source version on Contacts PRESS CONTACTinfo@ Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
