At the UN Secretary-General’s Early Warnings for All event in Antalya, London Mayor and C40 Cities Co-Chair Sadiq Khan called on every C40 city to have a full early warning system in place by the end of 2027.
“Climate disaster is no longer the stuff of some distant dystopia. It’s killing people, it’s harming communities and it’s impacting our economies right now,” says the London Mayor.
“And to fail to protect ourselves from the perils we face, or to fail to prepare ourselves for what could be worse, would be a dereliction of duty.”
Mark Watts, Executive Director of C40 Cities, highlights that spending on prevention makes more financial sense than paying for recovery after disasters.
“Extreme weather is already costing lives, destroying livelihoods and damaging economies. Every year that we delay addressing the root causes of climate breakdown and fail to invest in protection, the human and financial costs grow,” Mark says.