MEXICO HOSTS A REGIONAL MEETING OF EXPERTS ON THE DAMAGE CAUSED BY CLIMATE CHANGE 

• Representatives from 14 Latin American countries met to discuss the losses and damages caused by climate change and ways to address the issue. 

• Their conclusions will contribute to the multilateral climate change negotiations in the United Nations.  

Representatives from 14 Latin American countries designated by the Member States of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) met in the Foreign Ministry on July 23-25 to discuss ways to cope with the losses and damages caused by climate change.  

The meeting, organized by the National Water Commission (CONAGUA) and the UNFCCC Secretariat, was attended by government representatives from other regions, international organizations, the private sector and academia. It is one of the activities carried out by the UNFCCC Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI) in accordance with the decisions reached at the seventeenth Conference of the Parties (COP 17) in Durban. 

In his inaugural address, CONAGUA Director General José Luis Luege Tamargo said it is of vital importance for Latin America to identify areas that could be affected by weather events. This requires coordination among the various levels of government similar to the coordination that now exists between CONAGUA and the Interior Ministry to map the country's vulnerable areas.  In addition, he called on governments to adapt their public policies to climate change and he asked society to respect flood plains and to use water rationally to help prevent hydrometeorological emergencies.

SBI Chairman Tomasz Chruszczow applauded Mexico's contributions to the global efforts to address climate change and the efforts of various government agencies to strengthen Mexico's response to this issue, for example, the National Disaster Fund (FONDEN) and the National Center for Disaster Prevention (CENAPRED). 

According to the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR), in 2011 there were 302 disasters that affected 206 million people, took 29,782 lives and caused damages estimated at 366 billion dollars . Disaster risk associated with natural and technological hazards pose a threat to sustainable socio-economic growth globally and particularly in Latin America, one of the regions that is most exposed to these threats.

The results of the meeting will be presented at the next SBI meeting, which will be held during the eighteenth Conference of the Parties (COP 18) to the UNFCCC in Doha, Qatar, in late 2012.