U.N. conference draws up blueprint for nations to prevent disasters but sets no targets

By: KENJI HALL - Associated Press | Friday, January 21, 2005 8:10 PM PST ∞

KOBE, Japan -- Delegates at a U.N. conference agreed on a plan Saturday calling for nations to share information and take other steps to prevent natural disasters from turning into human calamities.

The five-day meeting was scheduled long in advance of the Dec. 26 tsunami that killed tens of thousands across southern Asia. But after the disaster, the focus shifted to funding and developing a tsunami warning system for southern Asia.

After marathon late-night negotiation sessions, delegates finalized the U.N. action plan Saturday morning. It was to be formally adopted later in the day.

The "framework for action" urges nations to share technology and draw up evacuation strategies and hazard maps over the next decade. But it won't be legally binding or set targets -- disappointing countries such as South Africa as well as some aid groups that lobbied for concrete goals.

As discussions over the document neared an end Friday, John Horekens, the U.N. conference coordinator, said delegates had achieved a consensus.

"The world today has the means to protect communities," he told a news conference.

Since the start of the U.N. conference Tuesday, about 800 delegates from dozens of nations, and 2,000 other experts and humanitarian aid officials discussed building quake-proof facilities such as schools and hospitals, erecting seawalls, expanding financial risk and disaster insurance and improving communications networks.

A dispute over whether to include statements linking steps to combat global warming with disaster prevention bogged down the talks. By Saturday, a compromise was reached that leaves in references to climate change, officials said.

The split reflects a longstanding battle over the Kyoto Protocol, a U.N. pact drawn up in 1997 to fight climate change. Some scientists say that rising global temperatures caused by higher greenhouse gas levels could lead to more extreme weather patterns that trigger cyclones and droughts. The EU strongly supports the treaty, but the United States has rejected it.

Wealthy nations pledged at least $8 million Thursday to begin work on an estimated $30 million network for the Indian Ocean. A tsunami network in the Pacific, set up in 1965, now protects some 26 nations.

Officials agreed on the merits of an Indian Ocean system, which could have allowed coastal residents to flee to safety had it been in place last month.

On Friday, meteorologists discussed improving weather forecasting for poorer nations to limit the devastation from floods, storm surges and other calamities over the next 15 years.

From 1992 to 2001, such disasters killed 622,000 people and affected more than 2 billion while causing about $446 billion in economic losses, according to World Meteorological Organization statistics.