Infrastructure for Resilient Island States (IRIS)

Disclaimer: Copyright infringement not intended.

Context

Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched Infrastructure for Resilient Island States (IRIS) on sidelines of climate summit in Glasgow.
Infrastructure for Resilient Island States or IRIS is the first major initiative by the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI).

What is CDRI?

The Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure is an international coalition of countries, United Nations agencies, multilateral development banks, the private sector, and academic institutions that aims to promote disaster-resilient infrastructure.
It was launched by the India at the 2019 UN Climate Action Summit. Headquarters: New Delhi, India.
Twenty-six countries, including the US, Germany, UK, Australia, Brazil, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, and Japan are already part of the coalition.
The coalition will not create any new infrastructure — rather, it will serve as a ‘knowledge centre’ for member countries to share and learn best practices with respect to disaster-proofing of infra.
It will work towards making existing and upcoming infrastructure in member countries more robust and resilient against climate disasters such as floods, heat, cyclones, forest fires, and rain.
The aim of CDRI is to minimise the damage and disruptions.

Need of such coalitions

There is widespread acknowledgment that despite the actions by countries to fight climate change, the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events and disasters will likely only increase in the coming years.
Countries are already experiencing more intense flooding, heat waves, and forest fires every year.
India’s east coast, especially Odisha and Andhra Pradesh, has for example been experiencing more powerful and frequent cyclones every year.
Due to significant progress in advance warning and tracking systems, and timely evacuation of people, the loss of lives has been greatly reduced over the years. But the threat to infrastructure has persisted.
So, power plants stop functioning, communication towers are damaged and street lights uprooted, and trains and flights have to be stopped.
All this has cascading effects, and the monetary costs of the damage and disruption runs into billions of dollars every year.
According to CDRI estimates, every one dollar invested in making infrastructure more resilient in low- and middle-income countries can potentially save losses of over $4 when a disaster strikes.

What is IRIS?

IRIS is a specific work programme that seeks to operationalise the CDRI initiative in small island nations.
Small island states are the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.
As sea levels rise, they face a threat of being wiped off the map.
According to CDRI, several small island states have lost 9 per cent of their GDPs in single disasters during the last few years.
Infrastructure in these smaller countries is more critical simply because there is so little of it.
The bulk of the work in IRIS would involve mobilising and directing financial resources towards building resilient infrastructure, retrofitting existing infrastructure, development of early warning systems, and development and sharing of best practices.