UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Wednesday urged the world to protect every person on Earth with disaster early warnings by the end of 2027, as a new UN report found that 136 countries now report having multi-hazard early warning systems — while around one in three countries still has none. Guterres spoke at a high-level event on the Early Warnings for All initiative at the COP31 climate conference in Antalya, Türkiye, which runs until November 20.

Source: UN News, Nov 11, 2026

The report, Global Status of Multi-Hazard Early Warning Systems 2026, was released by the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). It measures progress across four pillars — risk knowledge; detection, monitoring and forecasting; warning dissemination; and preparedness and response — and finds the number of countries reporting some early warning capacity has risen 143 per cent since reporting began in 2015, Reuters reported.

Warnings that worked

When a magnitude 8.8 earthquake struck off Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula in July 2025, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued its first threat messages within 10 minutes, the report notes. Japan evacuated approximately 1.9 million people, while in Ecuador's Galápagos Islands more than 2,300 people were moved out of high-risk areas hours before waves of about 1.3 metres reached the shore.

In Madagascar, an early action plan developed by the Malagasy Red Cross was partially activated before Tropical Cyclone Gezani made landfall in February, with some 600 door-to-door visits reaching 80,000 to 100,000 people with warnings and evacuation support. In Rwanda's Karongi district, a tea farmer and her daughters were warned through women's cooperatives, SMS, local radio and loudspeakers that heavy rain was expected within 48 hours, giving her time to reinforce her terraces, clear water channels and store her dried tea leaves before the downpour.

The gaps are widest where the risk is greatest

"No one should lose their life simply because a warning came too late — or never came at all," Guterres said. Around one in three countries still has no early warning system, he said, with the widest gaps in least developed countries, small island developing States and countries affected by conflict. "They did the least to cause the climate crisis, but are being hit first and hardest," he said. "Some European countries have more weather stations that meet global standards than the entire continent of Africa. We cannot warn people about what we cannot see."

WMO chief Celeste Saulo warned that the current El Niño "could be literally off our monitoring charts". "While we cannot stop El Niño, we can prevent many of its worst human consequences," she said. Reuters, which saw a draft of the report, reported that the head of UNDRR said the target of full coverage for everybody by 2027 was unlikely to be met, and that data from the Lloyd's Register Foundation's World Risk Poll cited in the report showed that in low-income and lower-middle-income countries fewer than half of those warned were able to act on the warning, compared with three-quarters in upper-middle-income countries.

Reuters also pointed to what is at stake when warnings fail: a rock and ice avalanche and flood in Nepal in August left thousands of people dead, injured or missing and caused almost $3 billion in damage — yaani lagbhag 3 arab dollar, about ₹25,000 crore se zyada ka nuksan at current rates — in a single event.

What Guterres asked for next

Urging countries to "accelerate and build systems that last", Guterres set out three priorities: making early warnings a permanent public service; closing financing and capacity gaps; and moving from fragmented projects to coordinated, long-term support for country-led plans. Since 2022, some $2 billion — yaani 2 arab dollar — has been mobilised and around 160 countries are receiving support, he noted, but finance must cover the entire warning chain, "from weather forecasting to communication tools to volunteers knocking on doors".

Warnings are also increasingly triggering action before disaster strikes: in 2025, 146 anticipatory action activations in 54 countries reached 9.6 million people, the report found. "Countries have made significant progress in strengthening their early warning systems, but too many people remain unprotected," said Kamal Kishore, head of UNDRR. Guterres closed: "The climate crisis is accelerating. Our protection of people must accelerate with it. Together, let us make sure that every warning arrives in time."

Source: Reuters, Nov 11, 2026