In the summer of 2021 Dr Raquel Nunes, Senior Research Fellow at WMS, was awarded a COP26 Fellowship in Climate Risk ahead of the climate conference in Glasgow. Here, she tells us about her work and how we can all help build resilience to compound extreme events.

Since joining Warwick Medical School in 2015 a key focus for my research has been to better understand the sources of individual and community vulnerability, and examining how to improve human resilience to extreme weather events such as heatwaves and cold weather.

We know that due to climate change, climate extremes and compound extreme events are expected to increase in frequency, intensity and duration. We are already experiencing increasing compound extreme events – that is, events that occur at the same time or successively, such as heatwaves, droughts and wildfires.

When they occur, compound extreme events threaten human health and natural systems, and impacts are expected to be more serious due to the increased exposure and vulnerability of certain populations and settings. As a result, we need to expand our understanding of how to become more resilient and how to better adapt to compound extreme events.

Encouraging discussion ahead of COP26

To help address this challenge, I applied for a COP26 Fellowship in Climate Risk, funded by the COP26 Universities Network as part of its Climate Risk project. I was delighted that my application was successful and I was given the opportunity to design and deliver a virtual conference session focused on disaster risk and compound hazards, entitled Compound Dry-Hot Extreme Events: Enablers and Barriers to Individual and Community Preparedness & Response which addressed specifically the occurrence of heatwave, drought and wildfire simultaneously or successively. This took place during the Climate Risk Summit in October 2021, a virtual three-day conference ahead of the COP26 in Glasgow.

The Climate Risk Summit addressed the topic of climate risk through different disciplinary perspectives, namely public health, climate science and sustainability. The event aimed to encourage discussion of climate risk with key influencers such as policymakers, civil society, business and industry, academia and negotiators.

During my session attendees had the opportunity to hear about the impacts of these events, individual and community preparedness and response approaches for different global contexts, as well as enablers and barriers to preparedness and response to compound dry-heat extreme events. We shared evidence and experience of preparing and responding to these events and discussed ways to better engage individuals and communities.

My session was attended by 146 participants from around the world including Europe, Asia, Africa and North America, from all sectors of society. There was a good level of engagement in the session and I hope to have achieved stronger links between research, policy and action.

Making a difference in the years ahead

While events like these are helpful for making progress, in order to start making a real difference, we all need to take responsibility. We need to stop thinking about extreme weather events as ‘unprecedented’ as they are already a reality to so many of us.

We need to make ourselves more aware of the risks they pose, assess our ability to deal with them and become motivated to act. This is a whole society problem that needs to be addressed in the short, medium and longer terms. We need to think about what we can do on an individual level but consideration also needs to be given to how we can adapt existing blue, green and grey infrastructure, current and future planning (such as dams, water pipes, parks, forests, wetlands, houses, workplace and roads) to be better prepared to protect and promote human health and to minimise the impacts of these events. Only by working together will we be able to make a tangible difference.