28 November - 1 December 2022 (online)
Mr SUZUKI Koji (Project Director of ADRC and co-Chair of APEC-EPWG) and Dr Gerry Potutan (Senior Researcher, ADRC) participated in the "Workshop to Strengthen Fire Prevention Capacities in Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI)" held 28 November - 1 December 2022. The online workshop was organized by EPWG-Chile to contribute to capacity building in the APEC economies. It focused on fire management in wildland-urban interface areas through the use of techniques and strategies focused on generating a culture of prevention that reduces territorial vulnerability and exposure to risk.
On the third day of the workshop, Dr Gerry Potutan gave a presentation highlighting the contribution of climate change impact projections to inform plans, strategies, and policies on climate change adaptation. While climate change does not directly cause wildfires, it greatly contributes to the creation of conditions that allow wildfires to start and spread easily, with extremely devastating impacts. One of the projected climate change scenarios indicates that global temperatures will become much warmer if human activities continue emitting greenhouse gases (GHGs) such as carbon and methane. This will create conditions for the "tinderbox effect," whereby summers become hotter and drier - making it possible for wildfires to more easily start and spread quickly. As a result of the workshop, the participants from the 21 APEC member economies and the government officials from Chile gained insights on applying climate change impact projections to the development of mitigation and adaption strategies for fire prevention in wildland-urban interface (WUI) areas.
(2022/12/07 15:00)