 My name is Sharon Burke and I'm on the leadership team at New America I'm also the director of our resource security program and we have a wonderful lineup for you today of speakers on a great topic So let's just get started and dig right in. I should say first of all, good morning. Good afternoon Good evening Aloha and mahalo to our friends who are joining us from Hawaii We have people who are covering a lot of territory with you here today to talk to you So we're going to talk about COVID-19 climate change and disaster response across the Pacific What's US policy? What should it be and what it all looks like together? We're going to start this event with a situation report from the Pacific Disaster Center, which is based in Hawaii I'll tell you more about them in a moment And then we're going to give you a brief overview of the new America report that that spawned this event called up tempo That'll be Francis Gasser from our team and then we have a group of experts who are going to get in a conversation on these topics You'll be able to ask questions and make comments in the chat and I'll introduce all of them to you later as we get to that conversation So first let me just start with a few words about the work that we've been doing in our resource security team This event is part of a two-year research effort to look into Natural security or the intersection of natural resources and national security We've been looking at this both in terms of what are the root causes of war and also of stability We've been looking at land and energy and water Climate change and biodiversity and how all of those things create instability or create stability We've also been working to redefine in a way what national security actually means That it's not just about warfighting and our investments and weapons platforms. It's also about security building And that's particularly important in a time of great power competition and When we've got global environmental change looming, which I don't think is a secret to anybody now We weren't specifically throughout the life of this project looking at pandemics It was certainly part of the sort of threat envelope. We were looking at But I don't think it's lost on anyone that United States has been investing in things like hypersonic missiles and a tiny microbe has just Bended our society thoroughly as thoroughly as a war can So I do want to thank the funders who've been behind this project which was originally the Skoll Global Threats Fund and that Organization that funder was founded specifically to look at Pandemics and climate change and other threats to our security and what it means and how we prepare prepare for them So it's a real testament to Jeff Skoll's vision that we have some research on some preparedness We wouldn't have had otherwise today when we really need it And I want to thank him and Larry brilliant and any any Maxwell And of course Bruce Lowry who all supported the work that we're going to talk to you about today among other things So that's our backdrop And now I want to welcome our first event. I also by the way as preparation for this event got a memo from General Abe Abrams who's the commander at US forces Korea among other things About some of their lessons learned and we'll plan to post that on our site So you can all see it later and we will bring up some comments that they sent us as well since they've been right In the eye of it. So now I'm really pleased to introduce to you two wonderful people From the Pacific Disaster Center, which is an applied research center That's managed by the University of Hawaii and partners with a variety of governmental and non-governmental Organizations including a frequent partner for US into a Pacific command out in Hawaii The two speakers we're going to hear from who are going to give us an overview of the situation in the region are Dr Joseph Green who's the acting director for Applied Science at Pacific Disaster Center And I should note that in addition to His calculations. It's his grasp on technology of disaster risk and resilience. He also has a PhD in epidemiology So he's in a unique position to explain what's happening to us And then also he's going to bring in Dr. Aaron Huey who's the director of disaster services at PDC She leads all the global efforts on their risk and disaster services and has been doing that for a long time So we're lucky to have both of them with us and turn it over to you, Joe Hello. Hi everyone. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here So what I thought I'd do is to start off and give an overview of kind of what's going on with COVID in the region And I'll go ahead and share my screen now And we'll get right into our disaster where application What we see here is an overview of the Asia Pacific and as of today, so keep in mind these numbers are changing They changed this morning Twice while I was looking at them. So these I anticipate they'll change again soon But right now there are over 170,000 COVID cases in the Asia Pacific That's confirmed cases and this it sounds low But this accounts for approximately 7% of the global total that we're seeing right now What we're seeing as far as trends. We're seeing incidence rates increasing in India, Singapore and Japan and What what I noticed as an epidemiologist is the uneven distribution of COVID across the region So we can see here in Japan Right now we have over 11,000 confirmed cases a nine over 9,000 of those are active India who I mentioned we're seeing quite the uptick recently in their case count. Um, they have over 20,000 confirmed cases And in Singapore We're seeing over 10,000 confirmed cases and their cumulative incidence is quite high Given both their population and the number of cases that they're seeing And moving over As you see these little blue icons popping up here as well I think this will go really well with what we're talking about. These are all new hazards that are popping up while I'm giving the brief So I think that kind of sets the stage quite well For confirmed deaths right now We're seeing the highest number. Uh, no surprise in China What we've also done on the map is we've had to disaggregate these by province So you can see the highest both case count and death count within china are in the hubei province We're also seeing a high number of deaths currently in india And indonesia who would have almost approximately the same death rate 635 as of this morning So i'll go ahead and And so as of new cases in the last 24 hours Um, I mentioned we're seeing a really large uptick in both singapore and in india Um, we're also seeing kind of a resurgence in japan with 377 newly confirmed cases Um, and these cases for china india japan as well as singapore are what we've heard are as clusters of cases These are countries territories that are experiencing clusters either spatially or temporally They're linked by common exposure contact tracing Some of the other countries within the aor or in the region Are experiencing community spread indonesia Is one in particular they're seeing sustained community spread in that region So one of the things as an epidemiologist And as a disaster researcher i'm interested in is what's accounting for these differences and when we first Heard about covet in china and in the region We wanted to be ahead of the curve. We wanted to see what was actually going on and one of the things that we did was Pull together data that we already had about healthcare capacity in the region so for example I can pull up a planning report we put together at the early stages of the outbreak for singapore and we can look at its healthcare capacity ranking and We see that they have you know over 22 physicians per 10,000 They have 71 nurses and midwives per 10,000 so fairly decent healthcare capacity as far as these things can be measured When we go back And we look at a country like japan We can see that they have an even higher healthcare capacity ranking So this gives us an initial baseline to start looking at what we're seeing and how we're seeing the differences Why this is important is in the absence of a vaccine We now have the opportunity to figure out what factors may be contributing to the difference in case counts and deaths From region to region country to country and potentially alter behavior and slow the spread And we want to do this If possible while limiting economic impacts and preserving stability So that first pass that we did we looked at these country planning reports And this was a good starting point for us But it does lack the ability to capture other means of health care capacity. So NGOs active in the region private health care so Clearly more than just the existing health care capacity is driving the differences So what we can see from some of the cases If we go back Particularly we look at singapore they're seeing a resurgence so We looked at the coping capacity the health care capacity to singapore and we looked at the coping capacity of japan japan is also seeing a resurgence And from the information that we've been able to garner The vast majority of the new cases in singapore Um are among residents of migrant worker dormitories. So these are a vulnerable population that was initially overlooked In the surveillance and the testing of singapore. So singapore was kind of a leader in surveillance and testing And we have this overlooked population that now is accounting for the vast majority of the new cases that we're seeing Japan, um, there's some uh debate as to what's going on there But there is some indication that just enhanced testing and enhanced surveillance is capturing more cases there So again, the differences in the capacities may partially explain this but there's more to the story going on there um, and as far as indonesia indonesia has seen One of the higher upticks in new cases And as I mentioned at the beginning of my brief, they have sustained community spread So some of the criticism of the response in indonesia is that there's not been early enough testing There wasn't swift implementation of strict social distancing and travel restrictions. And now we're seeing the results of those decisions So with that, I'll go ahead and I'll turn it over to my colleague, uh, Dr. Erin Huey and she can give you a little bit more about what we're doing within the region So aloha everyone, um, I wanted to take you a little bit through Some of the things that we're looking at around the region as we also combat um COVID as many of you Know the conversations have been how do we effectively support HADR While also dealing with COVID and we want to be conscious of several things, right? We want to make sure that One the us continues to be a partner of choice. We want to make sure that we are not introducing COVID to areas that have not yet Um, experienced it. We don't want to increase vulnerability in these areas, which is going to require a new approach So what i'm going to show you here is um, a little bit of a look First these the countries in indopaycom that are also experiencing the highest level of multi hazard risk Um, bangladesh, philippines, india, you know, indonesia all in the top top five Are also the same countries that are dealing with COVID so we know that we have a system that is going to continue to be exacerbated We know that we're going to have resources and assets that are already worn out And we know we're going to need to approach this in a collective and really partner driven way Using data and information as much as we possibly can So at least we're in a starting point where we understand them I do want to say that a lot of people I I've heard are we're hoping we don't have a big event I can tell you right now based on the initial data that we Can absolutely expect in the time that we're dealing with COVID to have a major disaster in the aor This aor deals with over 50 of all disasters in in globally So we will have an event and we do need to effectively prepare Now as um, dr. Green mentioned as he was briefing you started to see up in the top right corner of the screen Blue icons coming out saying one new hazard two new hazards These are the current hazards in real time that we have going on in the aor So don't be surprised if the new one pops up while we're here, but you can see we've got active volcanoes We've got serious drought happening. We've got landslides. We've got fires Happening in law. We've got severe storms And then most of you if you were paying attention over the last couple weeks also remember that we were dealing with tropical cyclone herald And herald was an event that happened while we were dealing with COVID and at a time Was a category five storm So we're talking about a small island nation of on a walk to being impacted by a very severe storm So this is not if it is when Um, we're going to have to deal with this. So what pdc was doing and what I think we're going to have to as as pdc The international community and as a nation We're going to have to do is a better job of collaborating and that's really what we've focused on in response to herald So I just want to show you a few things here um specifically We've been working with the un un ocha and the world food program in creating products with remotely sensed and modeled data That will prevent us from necessarily having to make decisions with boots on the ground So one of the first pieces that we did collectively and you may have seen some of these last year We actually started this initiative last year understanding that collectively We need to all be working from the same numbers with the same data And contribute to the larger holistic response in the region and I think COVID is going to highlight the need for this to happen So what we saw with herald is we combined our data and information to model what the impact of population would be What is the population living in the worst affected areas and in that worst affected area? How many significantly vulnerable do we have? and then we were able to very quickly translate that information into How much food water shelter refuse would be required so we could mobilize resources and assets prior to getting boots on the ground And that was a big consideration in a long discussion If we have to get individuals on the ground then it means we're going to have to quarantine those individuals And we're going to delay response by potentially 14 two weeks 14 days two weeks Not something that we want to do in a humanitarian crisis because that's going to leave open a space For other donors to come in might not abide by the same type of regulation So we have seen china and russia and cuba engaging in humanitarian assistance And in some areas filling a gap So we want to be mindful of who else is in the space and how do we collectively strengthen the partnerships that we already have The other piece that I just wanted To really highlight is understanding who is in the region, right? Who's already working there? So some of the data and information that we always look at are things like, you know, what NGOs are actively in the system and Where are they functioning and specifically what information what projects are they working on Also, where's us foreign assistance and what type of assistance is being Provided in those areas. Can we strengthen existing programs? And can we try and engage our partners in a way that is both helpful and driven In this now remote society that we're in just like we're doing here today in this briefing And then finally, I just wanted to give you a quick highlight This is something that we're moving a little bit quicker on than we had anticipated Just because we wanted to make sure that this is available for the coming season So this is kind of a sneak peek for all of you out there One of the pieces that that we wanted to To show Is something that we're calling the event brief So you you should be able to see on your screen A A event brief and you see information over here on the far right Here's the event really what we're trying to do and click Very quickly is what happened. Where did it happen? How bad is it and what do I need to do and do that all model So that we can slim down the time for decision making and make sure that we have the most information So here's just one instance of the the information That you saw on the other report. We also want to be able to instantly tell you historically what's happened in that area So you're going to see this and it's most important for Really the asia-pacific that we're focused on right now because historically if they have just been hit by a disaster And they're still recovering on top of that covid We know additional assistance is going to be needed. So how do we augment and strengthen our partners in the region acaan How do we strengthen our foreign military partners and our our allies in that area? We're also going to be able to provide you with a quick risk and vulnerability assessment Not just at the country level, but also at a subnational level So, you know specifically if hurricane is going to come in Dom re is one that impacted vietnam and they're in a province like Kuang Zing or or kuang nam that is really Vulnerable what type of assistance do we need to provide do we need to focus on medical or do we need to focus on feeding and education? Really try and make sure that the limited resources that the ngo's the humanitarian community have are extremely focused and tailored to the need on the ground And then I just want to show you one last piece We're also Bringing in live cameras so that we can have a visual inspection of what's going on And be able to show people in a safe way, especially during tsunamis What's happening on the shore? How destructive is it? We've used this actually in response to covid to be able to monitor How well some of these travel restrictions have been in place And then finally and probably most importantly the integration of assistance What are the agencies that are already in that geographic area and being able to select those and then contact them? So very precise focused information in a way that will support this decision making and this is nothing new For pdc. This is really what we've always been focused on is evidence-based decision making but we realize right now that the challenges that You know leadership has and decision makers around the world have in investing and creating projects means they need better data More accurate information as soon as possible And I think there's a real understanding right now that 80 of the information is better than no information So let's go off good science. Good data. Good information. Um, so right now, um, I'll turn it back over to you Sharon, but we're going to have a busy season ahead of us. We've got a lot of challenges But we do have a lot of opportunity Um to continue to strengthen those partnerships that we already have in the region Thank you, Erin Uh, I appreciate the presentation from both of you and just for everyone on the on the the Zoom we'll be able to include uh, Joe and Erin in our q&a session So if you have questions for them, we'll have time, but I'm just going to sneak in a couple of quick questions um Well, first of all, I just want to say that as you know, we we've been uh interested in what you're doing all along because It's a really great decision support tool that's integrating quantitative qualitative information and making it actionable and uh, we're working with you to to try to incorporate the longer term trends in as well Which we appreciate One thing that struck me though is uh in joe's presentation of the of covet in the region um, this doesn't look that bad yet Is that a yet and uh, you know, I think particularly in india that fat that wonderful tile you showed of the demographic Outlay, I assume that india the The healthcare realities and the resilience are in a very different place So, I mean as an epidemiologist as a disaster professional um You know, is this where's this going in the region? So I I will agree. It is a kind of a not that bad yet scenario. We're kind of holding our breath to wait and see um one of the things that um I think we were hopeful on the early onset of this was, you know places like singapore Uh, korea japan, we're gonna kind of lead the way and erin's actually going to share the screen here and show the key demographic for um India so you can see their healthcare capacity ranking from the information we have is Substantially lower Then singapore or even indonesia. So what we are expecting is to see this get worse particularly right now in indonesia And in uh, india because the measures weren't there in place early on So as we've all come to know from watching the news and what we've heard And it totally is you implement them and then there's going to be a lag Following that so we're going to see some increase in cases here and hopefully singapore can get a handle on what's going on with the um The migrant housing there, but I think to summarize briefly It's uh, we're waiting and seeing but not terribly optimistic Yeah, and I saw a comment from micromillion that you know that Not everyone gets counted and I think you've mentioned that for japan too that one reason their numbers are going higher is because they're counting Yes, and that's also a big kind of offline discussion. We're having is how accurate are the case counts? There's various means of reporting some countries There's only one official source for the for the numbers hospitals have to report up and then what happens from there There's there's debate. So We'll see as this unfolds, but we're not terribly Hopeful that this will stay quite so low, but we'll see hopefully And I think also is what's great about the presentation. You both did is that so This is a region that's full of disasters to begin with lots of natural disasters Now we've got a pandemic And the question of what the underlying resilience looks like and it's great that you have all three of those Going on so I'll let david make that comment himself All right, so we'll we're going to keep you on the line so that if people have questions for you We'll be able to to direct redirect. So don't go anywhere. Um, you're right Now we're going to turn things over. So francis gasser is a fellow with the resource security program at new america And he also works with visuality With us he's been amplifying our work on data and technology in particular and previously He was a really important thought leader at world resources institute So francis was the big driving force in this in our report called up tempo and what we wanted to look at was Uh, the natural disaster picture um in the endo pacific region And um, what the trends are over time and what how climate change may change that picture And what are the capacities for dealing with that and how is the us set up to deal with this? So francis is going to give you an overview of the report which has a lot of original analysis in it Which he worked on so take it away francis Uh, great. Thank you Sharon. Um I Do you uh, uh folks able to see my screen? Just nod for me. Sharon. Yes. We can see it. Wonderful. Okay, so, um Yeah, as serenity that i'm francis gasser and i'm a fellow with new america's uh resource security program And i'll be talking about our recent report on climate change and disaster risk in the pacific and what specifically that might mean for us disaster response So first a bit of background on the research that we conducted We set out to answer how is change climate change affecting disaster risk For this we looked at both historical data as well as climate projections And these were derived from the same set of models that were used by the un's intergovernmental panel on climate change So the map you're seeing on the screen shows hazards across the region over the past 40 years Tropical cyclones are in purple earthquakes in orange and flood prone areas in blue um second we looked at how a changing climate Might mean for demand for us military humanitarian assistance and disaster response missions I'm going to be primarily talking about the first part Uh, what did we learn? So it's the biggest disasters that we should be focused on disasters are by definition exceptional But it's the rarest events that cause the vast majority of casualties and the greatest economic disruption Um of the hundreds of tropical cyclones earthquakes floods droughts and other disasters that occurred over the past 30 years in the region Just five events account for over 60 of the disaster related deaths Um, it's here where preparedness and rapid response have the potential to save the most lives The smaller disasters still serve as a warning though of the risk of the big one Uh, so for example over the past 30 years disease epidemics such as SARS Make only a small blip in the statistics, but now we're in the midst of a global crisis that few of us could have imagined Um climate change, uh, we'll have the greatest effect at the extremes and um indeed there's substantial evidence that this is already happening So, uh If we look at disasters in the region, uh, you we can divide them into two categories There's the ones that won't be affected by climate Uh, not so much at least. Um, those might be earthquakes and tsunamis And then they're the ones that will be affected by climate. Um, and those include tropical cyclones floods Uh and droughts so tropical cyclones account for the majority of disaster impacts after earthquakes and tsunamis Um the relationship with climate is pretty simple The warmer the ocean is the faster water evaporates and this feels larger storms Warmer air is also able to hold more moisture and this means that you get bigger clouds Results being fewer more extreme rainfall events Um, this is already borne out in historical statistics So this graph shows that already we see a slight upward trend in the largest of storms We can also see this relationship appear in the models that we use to track hurricanes Um, for example, this study by trend birth at all at NCAR looks specifically at Hurricane Harvey Um, Hurricane Harvey caused record flooding in the Houston area in 2017 Um, the left graph shows increase in global ocean heat content over the past few decades On the right you see the abnormally warm Gulf of Mexico, which fueled the category for hurricane Uh, they found in this study that this increase in ocean temperature Led to Harvey dumping 15 to 40 percent more rain on Houston than it would have absent climate change And I won't talk about all of the data that we went through in this report But we can see similar upward trends in the frequency and severity Of river flooding of extreme rainfall and droughts Um, it's not all bad news though So while the frequency and magnitude of climate related hazards is increasing Countries are becoming less vulnerable Most directly, uh, this is improvements in disaster planning and infrastructure things like early warning systems flood protection measures But there's also a strong relationship between disaster vulnerability and core development indicators So chronic poverty leaves people with few options to evacuate Absorb or recover from disasters robust infrastructure can reduce the risk of follow-on hazards, uh, such as waterborne disease outbreaks Corruption affects the effectiveness of disaster response Um, this data you're seeing is from the Notre Dame global adaptation index Showing that vulnerability across the region is decreasing across a number of indicators Still there's much progress to me being um Next I want to talk a little bit about, uh the what this means for the role of US defense in disaster response So as seren mentioned our program looks at the intersection of national security and climate change so we uh, we wanted to focus on what this means specifically for the us military This photo is of the us ns mercy, uh in root to respond to the 2004 indian ocean tsunami Her sister ship the us ns comfort recently made the news arriving in new york For cobit 19 response if that it looks familiar She's actually doing the same in los angeles. Uh, so these ships are currently deployed in the us um The us military is often called upon to assist in disaster response efforts both domestically and internationally So while civilian and charity organizations Lead in disaster response the military can play a crucial role in responding to the The worst disasters in particular, uh defense forces are able to rapidly deploy to affected regions They can deliver huge amounts of cargo Provide personnel and infrastructure such as water purification and medical services This relief is essential when local infrastructure and services are destroyed or overwhelmed um An increase of risk at the extremes, uh as uh as we're seeing in in these climate indicators Suggests that demand for these missions will be increasing in the future So what can we do? The first is that we should adjust our expectations about the frequency and severity of disasters So climate change is already upon us We already see the upward trend in historical data and we should expect to continue to see changes into the future Meanwhile, growing populations and urbanization are creating the potential for more disruptive events mega cities in particular are Especially vulnerable Um At the same time infrastructure that's been designed for historical events, uh, may no longer be sufficient. So In the u.s. We often build flood infrastructure for a 100 100 year flood This is a flood that happens on average 1 or a 1 chance for this flood to happen each year Um a flood of that size But we're if floods are getting larger this infrastructure may only be sufficient for a one in 50 year event This means improvements to infrastructure and changes to disaster plans will be necessary Second is that we should focus on building resilience over just the response efforts So being prepared for a disaster is often substantially less costly than it is to respond to them And more importantly it can help save many more lives For example, um, a bengaladish is 1991 super typhoon meridian Was one of the worst disasters in recent history. It killed over 130 000 people, which is truly an unimaginable amount Just 15 years later, uh an almost identical storm super typhoon sitter Which you can see on the screen Followed the same path But resulted in almost 10 times fewer casualties Because of improvements in early warning evacuation and simple cyclone shelters The u.s. Military launched aid missions in response to both of these events Um, but because of these improvements, uh cyclone sitter was significantly less costly Um, it was still by all accounts a terrible disaster But the the effectiveness of simple disaster preparedness is clear finally, um The world is more interconnected than than ever So the safety and and prosperity of the american people Depend not only on how we manage disasters in the u.s. But also around the world Had covet 19 being contained in its early days Its impact would have been much lower For other disasters, there's no contagion but rather disruptions in global supply chains Uh state fragility that might cascade to migration and and conflict Uh human suffering and and just the the pure moral imperative to act um Moreover disaster response gives an opportunity for confidence building across nations Be them allies or competitors Yet there is also the risk that it becomes an area of strategic competition, which becomes costly for everyone affected Sharon would you like to add a few words here? Sure. Thank you francis and thanks for the overview and i Certainly call everyone's attention to the fact that there's a ton more detail in the report A lot more analysis and a lot of acknowledgement about the sendai process and other Other ways that disasters are currently looked at but you know We as I said as francis said we were particularly interested in the defense role in the defense community and I it's right now the The sort of guiding light in the pentagon is great power competition and lethality And I think it's not lost on anyone that That that sort of competition is spilling over into covet and That the united states china relationship right now is is you know It's been increasingly adversarial over time And with the pandemic it's worse Even than usual So we're at a moment where and and you know one aspect of that now is that the chinese are are very actively Reaching out to countries all over the world to offer assistance For this particular disaster usually that's an american strength We know this is what we do and we're going to hear more about that from some of our other speakers Right now this can be a point of competition That we can lose Or win in but it could also be a point of cooperation And it seems to me that we have a global moment here Where the united states and china can work together In the interests of both countries and of all countries To manage what is going to be a catastrophic That you know fall out from this pandemic both in terms of public health and economic consequences. So You know, it is a point of competition right now. It could and should be a point of cooperation Going forward both for the sake of of how we deal with the current crisis But also, you know, the united states and china are on a path now To you know a very ruinous war That no one wants to fight and everyone will lose. So it seems to me that kovat Is a responsibility not only to handle this crisis better, but also To look at the larger crisis there With that i princess you did get a very specific question from Jeff de velco, and I just wanted to pose that to you before we go into our chat With our our conversation with our panelists Jeff asked you about if you're number one Uh If your takeaway number one is the focus on preparing for the big events Is there any chance If you look at the financial impacts both direct and indirect In addition to the death total so that that changes and I know you looked at both at both The impact to human life and also the economic impact. So do you want to comment on that before we go into our conversation? Yeah, um, if you look at the economic impact the the patterns similar though less pronounced So you still see the biggest events accounting for or the top five events accounting for about 30 percent Of total economic losses instead of 60 percent of deaths Um, is so it is significant. Um, I I think what what often Is the case is that these largest events are the ones that overwhelm Uh local services, uh infrastructure over top Sea walls or or other things because they're bigger than expected and um part of the the message of focusing on the biggest events is that Nearly everything is going to be bigger than expected in the future. Um I hope that answers your question. Yeah, and I think also that You know understanding that the biggest events are the ones that that are going to overwhelm your services and that Planning better resilience also helps with the costs of the smaller events. So Exactly, it's both. Yeah So with that what I'd like to do now is bring in all of our experts for the conversation and francis will still be here And erin and joe are still here. So anybody who has questions, you'll be able to pose them to everybody But first I'd like to turn to david titley So if we can get him back up on the screen, great. Thank you I'd like to turn to david titley. So now Dave is a nationally known expert in the field of climate the arctic and national security But I think of him as the only true climate security expert in the country He is uh, both an officer and a scientist and I'm sure a gentleman as well So he's had a he had a 32 year career in the navy Rising to the rank of rear admiral, but he also has a phd in meteorology. So that is just not that common um And it's specifically for what we're talking about here He also chairs the national academies of science committee on extreme weather events and climate change attribution meaning that Um, you can't just say that a storm is a climate change event Um attribution is not is a slippery thing and the difficult science and uh, but it's improving all the time And david david is the expert on that so I what I was hoping you could talk to us about uh, Dave is the um The climate projections attribution science and Do we know enough About future disasters to plan for them You know specifically that does does the department of defense know enough about future disasters to plan for them Okay, well, thanks very much chair. You guys can hear me. Yes Yes, okay. I did I did figure out the mute button. Okay, good. Uh so I mean Yeah, I'm not I don't think probably anybody on the uh on the discussioner on the panel is going to be very shocked when I say Yes, we have a lot of information and we have had information really for decades uh I mean you you've worked in the pentagon. I I'll I imagine many of the people both Certainly on the panelists as well as in the general audience here have either worked in or with the pentagon and the security establishment And we all know that you know every day that especially the more senior you are in the pentagon If you're not careful from zero six hundred to 1800 every day every 30 minutes Somebody's lined up outside your door to tell you how bad things are what disaster is going to happen But if you write me a check for two billion I can maybe help you right? I mean, that's what we get we get we get sort of uh Problem fatigue and and it's almost all framed as this is the do d's problem whether you want it or not because you have the money And and yes, so you you got to sort of put that kind of cynicism to the side and understand that there are sort of different I'll call them qualities of predictions uh And I think one of the things that really kind of separates, you know, some of the predictions are which ones are Very dependent upon people and people response and which ones are relatively independent So in the short to medium term climate's pretty independent. There's basically about a 30 year lag between whatever policies Not only the united states, but really globally we have on greenhouse gases And when we're going to see the change and I'm if somebody's interested in q and a I can tell you why but Just kind of accept it's sort of a decadal kind of lag So we've already heard that, you know for the current pandemic. It's maybe a 10 to 15 day lag This is about a 30 year lag So given that Uh, you know, all we have to do now for the climate is all we have is, you know, non-linear fluid dynamics with You know, imperfect boundary and initial conditions, but compared to what the intel community deals with every day This is a piece of cake And this is why You know, it is exceptionally difficult and this is not a slam on the intel community To say what in any kind of granularity is the world going to look like? Let's say great power competition or a number of these other things 30 40 50 years in the future On the continental and even subcontinental scale The climate scientists can tell you that pretty well 30 40 50 years out You know barring some either huge super volcano, which would really cool down the atmosphere Or a massive massive change in human greenhouse gases very very quickly, which Again, you know, you you can't rule things out, but it's it's not not impossible Uh, I would absolutely agree with what I heard earlier here. I use a phrase I think it comes from a guy named burrows, but he said the worst matters more than the bad And I think that's kind of what you guys are talking about in your report. And that's how I I talk about I talk about this and you're absolutely right. We are going to see These these higher extremes as you keep putting heat into the Into the system Probably most people know here that over 90 percent of the excess heat is in fact going into the oceans You know and it takes a lot of energy to warm up water But once that energy is there it stays there for a long time and it becomes very very powerful So yes, we see additional rainfall. I sometimes call them rain bombs We see them in the u.s. We certainly see them in the indopacific region Uh, you know, if you get the monsoons, we're seeing floods that you know, we just simply haven't seen before and in various places When you get a typhoon It's still not quite clear that you're going to get more typhoons But when you get a typhoon the chance of that typhoon becoming very big and slower And and not only stronger in winds, but also bigger physically bigger All of those slower bigger stronger storms contribute directly to storm surge So, you know, the u.s. Had katrina And sandy those are probably the two most memorable storm surges in the last 20 years in in the united states high end is probably the iconic storm surge at least for right now in The the indopacific region We've talked about some of the Bangladeshi storms and and those will will be horrific because Nobody's going to go and change the Hydrography of the bay of Bengal. So it's it's again. It's just physics is what's driving this So all of those are yeah, we're going to we're going to have those we know that I mean it's really You know, and I think this pandemic has pointed this out that you know, even when you have reasonable predictions You know with some degree of fidelity and time and space That's the easy part. The question is is, you know, given all the other noise that we have and the press on current operations And I've been a current ops guy in the fleet and everywhere else and current ops sucks up every Every morsel of dollars and every morsel of brain power if you're not careful And how are we going to in fact try to try to get ahead of this So that as as you've mentioned as we all know, you know, some of the basic preparations and I think I'll just close with this because I Give give everybody else an opportunity. I mean, I think some of what Bangladesh did is really Tremendous and not that well appreciated when you we still have the horrific cyclones in the bay of Bengal Uh, but the fact that you no longer kill 100,000 people. Maybe it's only three 400 now That's still yeah, it's 300 people, but It's You know, it's being able to take a group of a thousand people and say hey 998 of you that would have died are not living. That's that's a that's a pretty good story Uh, it's you know, it's it wasn't a huge system I mean, it's not like I would like to really live in those typhoon shelters They have or those cyclone shelters for any period of time, but they work Uh It will be very interesting. I mean, we're going through in the us right now You know, just with the severe weather season, especially down in the southeast u.s Uh, people are very concerned about between the covid and storm shelter You have a e of three tornado coming at you. What do you do? Basically? Oh, by the way, if you you guys are in this go to the storm shelter. Okay, that's a much less risky thing to do then Uh, see how you're how your personal house is going to survive in an e of three tornado Uh, but that's a 15 20 minute deal What do you do when you're packed in into a Hurricane or typhoon or cyclone shelter for four days? That's a very different timelines And again, we've got you know medical doctors of which I am not one But you know, my guess is the exposure of 10 or 15 minutes versus four days is a very very different animal So I think this is going to be a real This is going to be an issue for the us which we haven't really had a discussion on But it's going to be an issue for a huge amount of the western pacific Certainly this year and and perhaps in 2021 as well. So we're going to have to figure this out not only the response But how do you uh Ensure that you you can keep the population safe. I don't have a great answer on that I don't know what the answer is, but I sure hope we have between Epidemiologists and physicians and emergency managers really thinking very very hard about that because this is coming And and you're right, you know, hope is a crappy strategy for avoiding Disasters anywhere and especially in the end of pacific region. It does not work. Let me stop there. Thanks Just a quick follow-up question for you. Dave before we before we bring in the other speakers Um, I did you know, you had mentioned me before and I noted down that you're on the national academies Committee that's looking at extreme weather events and attribution. Can any sneak previews about Anything new in there that well, yeah, it's actually really easy because we we finished the report in 2016. So it's out Uh, so if anybody uh, googles, uh, national academy extreme weather attribution You can read it. So But let me actually give you one thing and I think this was yeah, this was public So we had a national academy convened joint national academy And white house office of science and technology policy and and kelvin drugmire himself State for the whole thing about three hours in a wonderful wonderful zoom conference just like this uh And we were looking at how to actually implement some of these recommendations The academy has had on these climate reports, although nobody we were of all polite So we did not use a c word. Uh, but that's what it was and one of the recommendations that Got a lot of traction in the meeting and and I'll just say I think is Would not shock me if I see it in legislation in the near term future is how do we get the Really weather climate community at the seasonal level to start getting Working hard to give much more granularity at what I call a prediction of extremes. So yes Some uh extreme events and I want more everyone here. There are some extreme events We have pretty good attribution for others like tornadoes. We have very poor Hurricanes and typhoons are kind of in the middle for a specific storm. They're kind of in the middle Uh, what we want to do is let's say at this time of year is to be able to say How much what is the potential of a hyan or a katrina or a sandy? How many of those we know what the historical level is Is your risk going into now 50% greater? Is it greater for the philippines or greater for the korean peninsula? Uh, what's the chance of getting a really big cyclone in the bay of bangal? one two zero I mean and and you know imagine a world where you could do that but there's a reasonable amount of skill You know the no answer the you're not going to have one of those It'd be very useful because then commanders and decision makers can take those resources and maybe Do some other things with them and conversely of course if you know you've got a pretty good shot at the big one then you spend the money for Having the response and and making sure that that's all good as opposed to kind of everybody looking at each other's Shoes when when really bad things happen and realize you're caught flat-footed there. So That that recommendation is actually the very last recommendation in the 2016 national academy report And I was very happy that it got a pretty good traction at this meeting of 100 plus or minus but also So I can just say here that I think there is a chance to see legislation with funding attached that is going to try to make that a national priority to Really push on that and I think that would be helpful not only in the u.s. But frankly for for commands like indoe pacific com as well And I have no doubt that joe and erin would make good use of predictive data in their in their model All right. Thank you very much Rear admiral tiddly david so Let's turn now to Keeping it in the defense world to ann wood kowski who served as the deputy assistant secretary of defense for stability and humanitarian affairs in the office of the secretary of defense from 2014 to 2016 But she's also had a really impressive career throughout the defense community and is seasoned professional In in that world and I did not realize and by the way until I was looking at your bio in more detail That once upon a time when you were a student at gale, you also studied in lennon grad In the ussr. So we have atomic brunette. Maybe um But ann served in the pentagon the state department and also in the national security council. So Ann You know, I the things I want to ask you are about how the department of defense prepares for Uh, these kinds of missions and do they prepare for them? And should they be doing more and what should that look like? But I also wanted to read to you I mentioned that us for his career sent us a list of lessons learned which I will share But there was a quote a direct quote from general abram's the commander there He said The speed at which you can respond to a threat like covet 19 is directly proportional to the strength of the host nation relationship The close 70-year-old united states and south korea relationship was the critical enabler to our success So I'd also be great if you could talk about You know comment on that and the importance of partnerships and working together Take it away. Absolutely. Thank you so much and thanks for the opportunity to be on this panel today I really enjoyed um the report and I think it's a really important Contribution of the policy literature and it's extremely Timely, I'm going to stick it take a step back from and give you all a little bit of the practitioner's perspective from my time in the pentagon uh to talk about hadr And I'll come back to the quote from general abram says I do that I There's a lot of truth in what he says from my own experience as well not surprising to you um sort of taking a step back and Let's see zooming out the lens uh to hadr worldwide and what the pecan Involves itself in the endo pacific region is the most active theater in the world for these Activities and for good reasons as you outline in a report the region's history of disasters earthquakes floods etc And the united states own active engagement in the response Uh to those participating In support of our civilian partners and uh most often with the international community as well And we have a think a very good track record there um that having been said uh listening to the um The briefing on the report and having read the report. I hope that pentagon leadership will Acknowledge the trend lines and adjust its plan planning going forward accordingly And that very much starts with uh the planning documents and the planning cycle That the that the pentagon has and is a very very long cycle. We just heard from mary admiral titley and Climate scientists are looking 30 years out. Well the planning cycle for the pentagon is Two to four years out depending on which planning documents we're talking about so We need to be starting now and we can see before our very eyes the prospect of A complex what we would call a complex emergency an earthquake or flooding together with a pandemic And uh and that is something that we really need to think very hard about and there are two ways really that um That the pentagon is engaged in planning. We talked about hadr humanitarian assistance and disaster response Uh, and I think it's important to pull those pieces apart a little bit Especially coming back to what general abrams just said Through his memo to you about the importance of the relationship Because the ha part is very much about building relationships with other nations enhancing resilience Which your own report underscores is extremely important Plan to work with other militaries and with our civilian partners in a response. There's a lot to this piece So let me talk a little bit about What that looks like we've got a dedicated funding line for humanitarian assistance in the in the pentagon It's called odaka. That's the acronym oversees humanitarian disaster and civic aid and it's got a specific set of authorities associated with the funding line That has to have a humanitarian nexus and serve civilian populations And this funding provides a really critical opportunity for engagement with partner countries Building that capacity and that resilience that we've already been talking about And ultimately facilitating more effective response in a disaster because if you've built out the infrastructure And you've developed the working relationships That's a good thing the greater the resilience the better the relationship the greater the resilience The less do d will be called upon the better their relationships the more rapid the response has just pointed out And that's all good All regional combat commands have some measure of humanitarian assistance activities and the end of Pacific Pacific region. I'd say Greater greater than the greater than the others. We've talked about the bangla dash experience And how the building of resilience there has brought down casualties in the cyclone context My own experience is with uh, napal I was in the pentagon during the napal earthquake in april of 2015 Um that quake and its aftershock caused a disaster of really staggering proportions for the nepolis Killed more than 8700 people destroyed more than half a million homes Infected nearly a third of the country. We ourselves lost six marines and two nepolis partners on a helicopter rescue mission in the mountains During the response was an international response to which do d plugged in to usa id and the international community and deployed a joint task force Included some special operators that were already there that were repurposed for bringing folks down off of mount everest We provided airlift airfield surfaces and search and rescue with about 900 personnel By far and away hardly shows a blip on that graph that you um that francis showed us But in that context was uh Was a major uh, was it required a major response in the nepolis context itself So just a couple of really specific points about that response prior to the earthquake us specific command at the time It was now into a specific command had worked with the nepolis government on initiatives specifically designed to mitigate the impact of an earthquake um one example is the building of deep tube wells Now these wells were able to provide water and power after the quake in the catmandu valley to a number of displaced people We built help build infrastructure like emergency operation centers And had conducted just two years prior to the actual earthquake a field training exercise focused on an earthquake And this type of example just really illustrates how important these long lead times are How we need to plan out how we need to look ahead and hopefully how we can take some of this climate science and build it into uh elevated Priority for for the planning now. That's humanitarian assistance better And more robust humanitarian assistance activities in advance bilaterally and also multilaterally by the way Can equal improved disaster response got a lot of other activities that Help us plan specifically for disaster response a couple of them include training courses where do d works to uh develop relationships or understand the relationships with our civilian partners humanitarian assistance response training health emergencies and large populations training and of course exercises the large Largest of which and the most well known is rim pack or the rim of the pacific exercise Um, and so these are all really important ways that do d prepares Maybe there should be more of this in the future one point I do want to underscore it was touched on at the little bit at the beginning of the of the um session Is that do d always? Uh operates in support of civilian agencies So we're never out in front Or we shouldn't ever be out in front and in this case the civilian agency We support most often where it's always in these experiences as usa id wrote whom we have a really The do d has a great working relationship and that The relationship Utilizes the military when it can provide a unique capability Or when a civilian response is overwhelmed as it's already been said in your report I think it's worth underscoring that this unique capability could be like bridging a gap And lift to move people around or communications when communications are damaged, but at a time when the civilian Entities organizations and civilian side of governments are completely overwhelmed. So there's a limitation around where DoD should be operating and um, and there's uh, A real importance to its planning In a concert with its own civilian partners and with the international community Now let me just say a quick word about pandemics because I also happened to be in the pentagon during the ebola response Work in an infectious disease pandemic I'm sure that all of our terrific personnel civilian and military are Much as they don't like it learning Learning as they go right now And how best to respond and how best to prepare to protect our personnel But let me just stand back for a moment and offer a few big points about planning for a pandemic whether it's um A pandemic on its own or a complex emergency like the one we may face right now a pandemic combined with say an earthquake or A flood first of all infectious disease can unfold Uh at first more slowly That's what happened with ebola. It's a little bit of what we saw with the coronavirus or as we're seeing with the coronavirus in some places But we know the toll is much higher when the response is delayed So in a scenario where the u.s might be thinking about supporting the international community It's easy to look back and say We didn't move quickly enough certainly in the case of the ebola response. We were criticized for not moving fast enough in some quarters by some But then when we went in big with troops and lifts and construction of ebola treatment units and health care Worker training in west africa. There was another part of the community that said You know the question the wisdom of committing all these assets when we have so many other priorities Had so many other priorities At the time it turned out to be the right call It wasn't really clear to everyone at the front end and took a bit to secure support for that um Other questions that we encountered in the ebola response and folks on the ground are encountering today How does do d provide a necessary force health protection for our military personnel? What's the level of risk to force that our country our congress our people and our military are willing to accept in the case of our Infectious disease pandemic and to what extent will do db willing and able to deploy its own military personnel and on what scale What about our laboratories? These are questions that we encountered in ebola. We haven't yet I don't believe joined on all of them in the case of this particular response But if we're looking out to an instance in which we're going to see more pandemics in the future We really need to join these difficult questions and I don't think that we're Ready, we're just not ready a do d is not necessarily ready Um to respond to a complex emergency in the way that I think we would all like Um, but do d is not alone the interagency is not sufficiently prepared either and the work To prepare needs to be done together across the u.s. Government using the lessons learned from ebola And also as we're learning them from corona virus So just to sort of wrap this a bit into a bow and to come back to something you said sharing a little bit at the front end And and admiral titly touched on as well The pentagon prioritizes our offense and our defense our war fighting and our deterrence capabilities But we cannot underserve hadr planning particularly Given the kinds of issues that you pointed out in this report disasters are not going away and the big ones are coming So commensurate with assessment of what's projected for the future of the indo pacific region I would say three things. We need robust hadr preparation Including the elevation of pen the pandemic planning piece, which is hard um, that means Properly written into guidance and means properly resourced Uh, second, we need robust interagency coordination Um, I imagine that we still have extremely Excellent interagency coordination in the field We also need strong leadership at the highest levels to help elevate the issue and to do the necessary Planning and preparation and then third. I think we need to ask ourselves Uh, given where uh, we may be headed Uh, what do we do to reinforce maximal cooperation internationally? In a disaster response scenario with our allies and friends and the question that you put to us Sharon earlier When our competitors like china are increasingly active in these kinds of situations So I think we have a really do do is a great foundation In its experience in the region in the region and the assets that it already can bring to bear on it But we get a lot of work ahead Thank you. And no that was that was great. And um, and you set up more conversation in a variety of ways um, and a comprehensive answer including we already have an audience question that that Kind of got at something that you talked about which we can bring back up later um You said we're not ready And then you gave the three things that you think we need to do Is there is there anything else that you think I mean because this is on us. This is happening and and We could be talking about near term or we could be talking about the winter when when it comes back Um, is there anything that you think we need to do right now to be to improve immediate readiness? Well, um, it's hard for me I can One thing we need to make sure that we one thing that I think that would be very, um, helpful to focus on And frankly where we fell short in the Ebola response And this is very well documented and all the lessons learned documents from that response Is to define the roles and responsibilities Of all agencies so that there is a common set of expectations of what's going to be brought to bear in the event of Whatever it is that we're planning for and I would put that way way up at the top of my priority list And one of the reasons that we wanted to look at defense, you know for a variety of reasons But one of them was that we wanted to look specifically at what assets are most important for For when the military is involved in a humanitarian or disaster response event And how frequently are those assets used and you know, there's an opportunity cost for those assets, of course And there's very specific things the large cargo aircraft amphibious ships And what else francis Uh rotary aircraft Right, so helicopters that are that are heavily used and we were really interested in whether or not the military Sees that as an opportunity cost because of those assets are also very important for war plans and campaign plans Do you think there's awareness of that? Um, I can't speak specifically to indopacific command. I can speak to my own experience again harking back to Ebola There's always a tension in the use of assets. These are these are extremely valuable assets And so when we are looking at uh, when the u.s. Government's looking at how it's going to respond to a disaster It's it really is in the moment in the case of um, the Ebola response We deployed a number of our very valuable ospreys down to west africa down to liberia That's a tiller rotor aircraft the rotor aircraft, right, uh, and they proved incredibly valuable in the response frankly not only because of the Lift that they were able to provide in the country, but they were also a really important symbol of the american presence um In that response, uh, those are the same rotary aircraft that we might You know need in other types of cases in a i'm just speaking in a in a sort of theoretical way Those could be used for responding to uh, embassy security incidents or Something like that. So um, so it's it's hard to say exactly You know what the What the trade-offs are at any particular moment? Um, the u.s. Military has always been there when asked it's always been there and I think in a future case It would be there again Uh Yeah, and we were just wondering though if that becomes a bigger ask when it has been in the past, you know, then How where are the trade-offs this you know sort of the kinds of questions that we were looking at But yeah, that's I think you're the three things you laid out are part of looking that out in advance um one thing that you mentioned and was uh that Of course the the military is not in the leap on Disaster relief that actually for the united states both at home and overseas civilians are in charge And the military is a supporting element And I know you wouldn't know that from the discussion so far as I said we chose to focus on the department of defense for a variety of reasons including that um They have a very very big budget and the gentleman we're about to hear from his organization. That's a very very small budget um Al's wire is the senior regional advisor for us agency for international developments office us foreign disaster assistance now If you don't know this this organization often by its acronym This is the lead agency for the united states of america in responding to foreign disasters and Al I have to tell you that um I was trying to find a you know, I've long Thought with great admiration of often and I was trying to look up a quote or something and came across a government accountability office report that said that um Everybody basically said everybody likes often, uh, you know, ngo's the un And the military and other agencies everyone thinks well of often and that is that is uh saying no small thing so Can you talk to us a little bit about What you know how often works and how it plans for the future Great. Thank you very much. And uh, frances. I just wanted to commend you on the report, you know being Being in the field for the last 25 28 years seeing some of those conclusions. Uh, I agree with you and I also You know the big one that's something we've got to keep in mind So yeah, I'm with often often of foreign disaster assistance Unfortunately, we're about to be merged into what's called the bureau of humanitarian affairs So it's going to be the end of an era, but In myself, I'm the senior regional advisor on base out of Bangkok. My day job is my aor is really Mongolia, china, Burma everything to a y so 32 countries So I'll talk about that. But of course I as Ann knows I deploy globally. I work issues all over the world but I think what I wanted to say about uh, Asia and uh, some of the topics here is, you know, we just cannot ignore Some of the growing response capacity that is inherent in in countries like Indonesia and the Philippines and really all around the region and As people people know often for the response, you know, I manage a team of 10 Regional advisors based all over southeast asian stuff. And yeah, our job is to You know get on the plane that night and hit the ground and do the initials assessment and work with people like Aaron and the mercy cores in the un But uh, the other thing we're been doing Over the last 10 years. It doesn't get a lot of attention is what we call disaster risk reduction And let me just tell you a little bit of story here. So I got to Bangkok in 2008 and You know at the time we were responding between 25 and 30 what we call disaster Decorations a year and this is when a host nation is affected by a disaster and they request international assistance, particularly with the united states 25 a year Now in 2018 2019. We're averaging Three to five a year. So, you know, what happened there hasn't been a reduction of disasters in in asia and the pacific But what we've done over those last 10 years is we've invested in local capacity And uh, but you know, it's not just our investment There's a lot of things that've been going on in asia and they should figure into your calculus A lot of the countries in asia You know have past legislative new laws and everything they've created these national disaster management organizations like the fema They've put line items into their budgets. They professionalize them I think uh On top of that you've got a much more aggressive media all throughout asia Okay, when there is a disaster and there's not a local response or something like that And I'll bring up rappler for example in the philippines There's a lot of pressure politically And I think the last thing to mention out in asia I think reduction is is really nationalism You know, it's you know in the old days 10 years ago. I could remember saying the philippines or indonesia We'd have two or three events where we'd go in with the marine corps and help out on a disaster But you know, that's just not the case anymore for some of the reasons i've mentioned So again, I think my first point is and we we invest anywhere between 40 to 60 million dollars a year in this disaster risk reduction And we focus it really on three things We try to capacitize those national disaster management organizations like the femas in each host country We also put a lot of resources into what we call first responders and a lot of times that's the red cross or that's local NGOs Build their capacities early warning systems. For example, uh, pdc We're working closely with To give that country that capacity to do that early warning and that sort of thing And of course, there's always that community-based stuff You know, a lot of these communities get hit by the same typhoon every year the drought or the flood So to really strengthen them So again, we're down to about three to five disaster response We request a year from countries and again, I think am pointed out as well You know when do d goes in or often goes in it has to be at the request of the host nation So small to medium disasters now throughout asia There is not that ask for international assistance But there is and so you might say well, what are you doing all the time? Well, I'm spending half my time in the middle east I'm half spending half my time in my team in latin america or something like that So that's a good news story, but As I said, there is the same amount of disasters. It's not more We talk about these black swan events or these super problems like the high ends, you know, I You heard about high ends a hundred year event and then sendais a hundred year event and then you know these bushfires I just got back from in australia another hundred year event. Well, it seems like we're having a lot of hundred year events and you know and again The work with the dod one of the things that uh, and talked about is You know, they do play an important role and you know, they do bring what we call a unique capacity And we're hand in glove and so I agree Just a little bit. That's a little bit of background. So what do we do in the future? I think we continue along the same track, you know, we make investments in building that local capacity because Hey, they're the they've got the best knowledge. They're going to be the first responders They're actually going to make the difference on the ground in that first 72 hours. For example, it's important, but You know, there's going to be times where they're overwhelmed. Some of these countries are still developing, of course and you know, when you bring in a unique capacity like Primarily with dod, it's lift You know, we we we move things from point a and b. I can remember in high end when I was down there Uh putting together an airport or something like that. There there's nobody better than the dod And again, I think they have been forward-leaning. I mean, though There's more ass than there is request, of course, but we have to be ready because we can't be late As you mentioned, uh, there's a lot of other players in the sea You know, japan's now getting more and more involved. You see the koreans showing up with the c 130's, you know, china Uh, not militarily right now, but boy, they would I remember I think it was in high end. They wanted to bring in one of their ships, you know, the mercy ship the hospital So that competition Is there I'm very aware of it. It's it's part of our calculations But, you know, again, I'm more of an operator. My job is to get on the ground provide that proprietary information make things happen But again at the request of that affected and host nation so I agree interagency cooperation is is is critical and You know, just understanding. I was the dark team leader for the ebola response I was also the dark team leader for the cedar response again Great examples of do d and us a i d cooperation um, but And I think as the admiral said, you know, what what is next? Well, we know it's going to be something next How do you plan specifically details? You can't you just have to be ready for The inevitable and you know, a lot of times I call it the fog of response, you know, those initial days after a I don't know some somebody had that the fog of war I've kind of stolen that call it the fog response, but those initial 72 hours where we're Calculating what are the needs and what are the permissions and you know Just japan have a sofa to come in with the united states There's all kinds of these questions that I think a lot could be eliminated beforehand And I know there's a lot of effort to do it But every disaster is indeed unique So you have to be ready for anything And be ready to do what you can at the time. So I'll leave it at that. I know Thank you Al Yeah, I have done an exceptionally poor job of time management for our event So, uh, I want to give uh, erin carder a chance to to say something because She's a important role to play in uh in any disaster response She's the senior director for humanitarian response at mercy core Which is a fabulous non-governmental organization that's in maybe 40 countries around the world More than 6,000 staff and they cover the waterfront from violent conflict to humanitarian response So erin it would be really interesting now. You've had a chance to listen to all this Yep, and uh, what from your point of view, uh, as a as a non-governmental player all over the world on these kinds of events Um, particularly looking at the future. How are you planning for things? What do you think about all this? Great. So happy to talk. Thanks for having me. Um, and hi everybody out there Thanks for joining us So mercy core is a non-governmental organization. We are founded in 1979. We have about We work in about 40 countries and have about 6,000 staff 87 percent of them are national staff from the countries that they're hired from So we're an international organization with a pretty local footprint And we have delivered about four billion dollars of assistance over the last 39 years we've been working I work on our humanitarian team, which is the team that does the rapid response works with OFDA and We sit within a larger framework of long-term development program and resilience work within mercy core structure so for for our humanitarian work, what we tend to focus on is In both rapid onset emergencies and complex crises So if you think about the world, do you think about northeast Nigeria, syria, yemen colombia, finazuela all the way across the asia-pacific through indonesia, timor, india, napal, mongolia, miamar, pakistan, afghanistan, bangladesh mercy core works in all of those places And I what I find pretty When we do first phase emergency response, right It looks very similar in many of the places what I find That mercy core is able to do is fairly quickly move from the meeting emergency meeting immediate emergency needs Into the medium-term recovery And so there are ways that you can do peace building work during humanitarian response There are ways that you can start connecting and rebuilding markets Reinforcing livelihoods activities and focusing on recovery and for us this sits within a larger framework of resilience Because everyone who works in emergencies knows and has seen that your first responders are always local So we have tremendous plans to move millions of dollars worth of support and equipment That is much much needed in many places But there is always a gap from when the emergency and the disaster happens to when assistance arrives And so your Support is the neighborhood and the communities that you work in so building resilience coping social cohesion and social capital Are some of the strongest ways that communities will survive crises And so I echo al's points about disaster risk reduction As well as climate change and adaptation are some of the key areas that will help communities Work through the disasters that we we have great data show will inevitably happen in many of these places that we work in I have um, I was listening to our list and I have to say I I have been in most of the biggest ones that we've listed or have been supporting from our headquarters And so when we look at the list of pakistan earthquake hyann Nargis seishwan the tsunami harvey and napal We could probably have another session where we talk about all of the things that we learned from those There's also a really interesting piece for mercy core in this because we work across um We work across Settings, right? So we see that it is much easier for us as a nonprofit non-governmental organization to engage with us military in settings that are not complex crises So we have a lot of rules Internally for being impartial and for being how how we're approached by communities and how we approach communities For the ways that we engage with u.s. Military or military in general in settings like syria and yemen and iraq Etc When natural disasters happen it provides us a different opportunity for engaging with with military and with u.s. Government DoD in particular Because it provides an opening that feels in many ways very apolitical in ways that violent conflict is not And so it gives us a chance to be a little bit more directly engaged especially through usa id and rfda partners To be able to work directly with military in ways that we absolutely Do not see possible in complex crises So I think that that's an interesting dimension of natural disasters, especially in asia pacific region where we see Where we have seen and worked with um u.s. Military In ways that we have not in other places in the world and and likely will not be able to Um, I would say that you you had sent me a question about what are some of the trends that are on our minds As we're as a non-profit and a NGO thinking about what what this all means for us We're doing um our we have been tremendously impacted by kovat as everyone has and so We have kovat response programs that are underway And we are also able to continue delivering existing programs in some of our countries Making modifications so thinking about ways that we have to adapt our distributions to make sure they're social distancing Because in some places we are the providers of social safety net programs. So it's hard to stop Work when you know that people won't get cash if your program stops So we have to work pretty hard to figure out what are the ways that we can change our programs In order to be able to continue to do to deliver the programs that people depend on So with kovat it gives us another sort of another dimension to think about and one of the pieces that mercy core is working on right now Is to frame up what we're calling some assumptions that Our country teams need to have in their minds as they consider how to respond to natural disasters in a pandemic Because we know that some of the business as usual ways that we work flying people in bringing supplies in may not be possible Outside of large perhaps military perhaps very large World food program funded air bridges things like that which we don't see in place yet So we have to again reinforce local leadership And local solutions in order to be better prepared at community level For the disasters that we know will happen in asia pacific I will say that for us Some big things that we're thinking about is about the connection between climate and conflict And so we see that Across the world where we understand, you know, the united nation reports that climate related disasters Account for more than 90 of the world's disasters from 1998 to 2017 We also now have new research that's come out that says A new study and my colleague sent me this by the pot stem institute For climate impact research found that almost one third of all conflict on sets In vulnerable countries over the recent decades have been preceded by a climate related disaster within seven days So there is there is a real connection for us between the climate impacts that we understand are happening in the world The disasters that we're seeing and the violent conflict that is arising And for us to work not just on natural disasters But to consider the ways that climate change is impacting The dimension of disasters is also a pretty important piece for us And we work on that through a number of ways that I will I won't get into today, but perhaps could be another conversation So I will say that with climate changing Disasters seem to be also changing And conflict seems to be going up all sort of packaged and dynamic and interesting ways together We also see forcibly displaced people continue to be Moving at record levels and that is concerning in a number of ways for us, right? I'll just be brief because we're we're close, but food insecurity is rising that's connected to climate change That's also true across the asia-pacific where we think about like just so much availability, but struggle with access Um, and then finally I would say that some of the future future work that's ahead of us around disasters And I think is particularly terrifying right now Is urban settings so with pandemics in urban centers being fairly bad The potential for climates related disasters on top of that as well as natural disasters And then knowing that people are home knowing that people can't leave and understanding What's the conflict that will eventually arise in those cities? I think it's pretty scary So if we have a hurricane or a typhoon that hits a major metropolitan area that's also experiencing a high prevalence of Uh, COVID-19 right now as well as potential historical unrest within those communities. I think that that's a pretty Worrying scenario for all of us that I can't say that any of us are well prepared to to address And then finally because I'm a non-profit. I will say that systematic underfunding of humanitarian response Continues to be something that we struggle with not only from a non-profit perspective, but also from UN appeals consistently underfunded as well as a lack of funding available for climate related work Means that we continue to operate as best we can with the resources that are available But tremendously underfunded. So I think I'll say I think I'll end with that except I think maybe I made my point already but How is our organization thinking about the future? You know local leadership will be I think the way forward and this is a particularly sobering moment for all of us As we are international and we are local What is that going to mean? So is this the time to fundamentally transform the global humanitarian system to truly shift power and resources into local leadership? It feels like this is giving us a hint of what the future will look like And as someone who who lives I live in New Orleans So I have heard some of your comments about your local recovery and infrastructure behind schedule So it's it's personal as well as professional about what I think it means to be a local responder in a global world So thank you Thank you, Erin. That was at once both depressing and uplifting So that's a nice balance to achieve. So we're actually at time, but we're going to quickly take a couple of questions before we wrap it up and I Would like one of them I think is something that Ann can knock out pretty quickly Somebody asked about the medical capacity at the Department of Defense and whether the Department of Defense has the capacity to just handle the pandemic Given your your experience with Ebola. I think you probably know the answer to that pretty pretty simply Yeah, the issue Yes, we the the department has substantial medical capacities and the department does Have considerable engagement with other countries around the world on the medical front, whether it's Related to actual Provision of medical services or laboratory cooperation however The way that the department is structured is such that our medical providers are really primarily Oriented and designed to support our own military. And I think there's broadly speaking A lack of understanding that that is generally the case Having said that I think Based on our experience in the Ebola response and now the domestic response in the United States to covid The department of defense really needs to plan and prepare for asks along these lines for medical support when it's needed and And that would be I think high on my list for consideration when I talk about doing um More of us planning for these kinds of scenarios in the future I think for example, if you look at india, you're talking about 1.3 1.4 billion people and Uh a medical system that doesn't have the capacity for response to covid the department of defense can't begin to To cover that gap. We can't cover it here in the united states, uh, which I think has been Very clear is that for something on this scale do d doesn't begin to have the capacity for that Um, Joe and erin you had posed a question for al. Do you want to go ahead and ask him Yourselves what you were what you wanted to know from him? I was really looking both for erin and for al interested, you know in the next six months And erin kind of alluded a little bit to this in the next six months What is the process change that needs to be quickly implemented to be able to Still serve partners and local support locally in this current constrained environment So al you got to unmute yourself Yeah, I apologize So just real quick on off to the covet is actually being led by the usa id office of global health in my organization However, we are playing a role and our role is you know, we have two what's called complex humanitarian emergencies one in berma with Rohingya where we've been for a number of years the other one's down in Mindanao with the earthquakes and some of the displacement around Marawi So we are beefing up in there to provide support And the pacific as well Look, it's still kind of business as usual. You talked about typhoon herald We just had four disaster declarations vana watu salman islands tonga and fiji Where we did get support out now. We're doing it remotely. We're we're making adjustments on the fly But you know, we're working with partners on the ground That are following local protocols are aware of it Little less on the internationals flying in obviously because like for example in vana watu They're not allowing in intern international carbos or international expats do respond So there are workarounds and we're just figuring that out as we go over I will say al I know the the work that often does for assessments Really right in the first couple days really serves as the underpinning for decision making And that in particular I have interest in you know How that's going to still happen if it's just locally or whether or not they're going to have to be measures taken because I do know that that That by far is the foundation not only within the u.s But seen as an authoritative source for data and information low boy So it's triangulation. It's using your products. It's using talking. We're talking to local partners You know, I mentioned our disaster risk reduction programs throughout the region So we have partners on the ground and it's right now. It's triangulation. Yeah, normally we'd be on the ground within 24 hours for proprietary information so again, it's It's something we're working through as we go forward But you know, it's partners like you that we're relying on to develop that in under these conditions over From the mercy core perspective, there's a couple of things. So at an international level We're doing two levels of that of advocacy, right? One is to existing donors for increased flexibility for NGOs to be able to continue operating because we depend on donations, right? So we have some tremendous constraints just in a business model for an NGO perspective right now So there's tremendous advocacy that we're doing around that and by and large are getting Quite a lot of leadership actually from USAID on that and really setting the tone for other donors We also need more funds available. We cannot respond to COVID continue social safety net and life-saving programs and respond with constraint resources, which is where we are right now Internally we're producing a lot of tip sheets and facts sheets for our teams to be able to start making changes that they need now Start reviewing their business continuity plans and their emergency preparedness plans to make sure that they've made changes And are not working on the assumptions that they've had from previous emergencies because we know that they will not follow through on this one So it's a lot of internal work in terms of just getting people Where they need to be to think about this season Of hurricanes and typhoons and all the stuff It's hard right now because people are tired and so While we have this season ahead of us um The restrictions that are in place because of COVID are causing lots of burdens and so staff can't be in offices It's hard that Ramadan will start tomorrow So it's hard for people to think about what's next When they're struggling through what's happening today So I just think it's also a difficult time for team members around the world And so it's it it's just something that we have to manage right in terms of our own restrictions And the needs of a mission-driven organization to be able to respond to the disasters that are ahead of us In a responsible way that meets humanitarian needs But also doesn't put extraordinary risk on the staff that we that we ask to to go out into the field and do this work Um, so from I thought there was something else, but I seem to have lost my last point well, I think also just uh, lauren reese from the woodrow wilson center asked a very similar question which was um That you've done a good job of talking about the risks and that that climate change and COVID now are both Compound cascading risks and how is this changing your strategies? And I think you both you all addressed that but if you wanted to add anything else Specific on that. How do you plan for cascading compound risks? And then we'll have one last question I don't have an answer for that exactly But I will say that the one thing that I forgot to mention is that mercy core also has what's called our crisis analysis team And that team looks at like big data and lots of trends founded in local information And we're producing reports that are second the secondary impacts of COVID on the communities and the countries that we work in So we're doing some additional layering of analysis to help teams think through what are not just like your immediate economic impacts your immediate social impacts But what are some of the secondary impacts that sort of cascade across your country and community? So that's helping us be a little bit think think a little bit bigger than The immediate right now. I'll let someone else answer about cascading risk Anybody else want to weigh in on that before we go to our last question I will just say that this is a question that's come up quite a lot in the last two weeks with indopaycom leadership And something that I know that the j9 and all hazards Group at indopaycom is looking at quite heavily is both the direct and indirect impact Of this crisis and how that might have cascading effects with natural hazards or You know humanitarian crisis. So I am at least happy to see that there are a lot of people looking at this question I don't know. Everybody has the answer just just yet and it's hopefully we'll come together collectively with some good guidance fast very fast Dave did you have the You got to unmute yourself first if you want us to hear you. There you go. Uh Yeah, I think this actually gets back to ann's point of a few minutes ago on you know, sort of Capacity within within the dod. And yeah, there's a lot of capacity and no, it's not enough and yes It's for military I'll just give you one example when I was commander of naval meteorology and oceanography command, which is based down on the Mississippi Louisiana border After Katrina us north com through the naval component of north com Directed me to have I think it was three hydrographic survey teams on a 72 hour alert during u.s. Hurricane season Now these are worldwide deployable and normally they're out in either, you know back then in paycom or cent comma wherever Uh, but post Katrina Uh, the dod basically said hey, we're gonna you know through north com. We're gonna have this close enough so that when we have a Uh, the catastrophe in the homeland We can we we will respond and I don't know whether or not those same dynamics are going to play out. I have no idea You know post post pandemic here, but that was certainly one of the fallouts of of Katrina is the dod had to keep Uh assets that would have deployed otherwise reasonably close to to connoisseurs that might tether with 72 hours Uh for to finish on a radically different note, um Stay live there because this might be one you want to answer We had a couple of questions about china and and about china as a superpower ambitious country Um going into providing this kind of aid and it's been very clear that they've done that in the current crisis Um and one of the questions was do you really think the united states and china can cooperate? in this in this area um, and Admiral david any any comments on that? I have a lot, but i'm not going to say them. Uh, I think one of the things of being an expert is knowing what you're not an expert in Which you know immediately kicks you off of 90 of cable tv, but Yeah, it's it's very Very interesting and all I can say is I hope not only at the Uh combatant commands, but also at osd and the joint staff the national security council Uh, I'm I'm really hoping we have some people thinking through this very very hard. You can just see in open source Uh, what the government of china has been doing for some time and I would go back 20 years that's certainly in the last six months and Yeah, there's there's somebody mentioned. This is an inflection point. I would agree. It's an inflection point I'm not sure it's one for the better, but I think There are going to be uh, some some precautions, but let me just stop there And any thoughts? Yeah, I think I'll Am I on me? No, I'm not on you. Um I think um, I will tiddly put it very well. I hope that uh, there are folks on the inside right now Looking hard at these trend lines Uh, I'll also add that I think Um, if you're looking at the cooperation piece, which is one that you raised The point that you raised right at the beginning of the conversation Sharon and it's been Raised again in this question It's complicated. I think it's one that should be looked at but it is it's it's it's complicated Uh, we have had periods of Um limited cooperation Mill mill cooperation And there's no reason to believe we couldn't at some point get back to that But there are a lot of other factors involved So I think there's value in raising the issue and we we need to really look at it hard what it means for us interests Aaron yeah At an operational level mercy course been working in china for I think the last 15 years And we have some great partnerships with gongos right the governmental non-governmental organizations And so while we don't have programming anymore in china, it is strictly a partnership office That does a lot of work with encouraging chinese A bilateral assistance to countries of interest in china. So they've done some work across africa They're also doing some work in eight different parts of asia. So I think In a in that way, we've had some successes and we have some great Engagement and partnership with the non-governmental organizations that we're working with in china So at that level, I see a lot of camaraderie And I also see a lot of willingness to learn from our colleagues and the nonprofits that we're working with in china I think uh, thank you very much all of you for your comments and I'll I'll Take the and thank you francis for all the work you did on this and for your presentation Just a last comment on the last topic You know humanitarian and disaster relief has been An area that the u.s people And the u.s government has excelled in for a long time. We're a generous country And we're a capable country when it comes to this particular asset and You know, that's that's both a humanitarian good, but it's also a geopolitical good It has it has been to our benefit as a country and our reputational advantage worldwide That this is an aspect of both our population and our government um it So from that perspective, I think it's an important Part of who we are going forward As for china, they're not it's not lost on them that those things are true And If we think we're in a great power competition the way I look at it is it's not just about the military and the force of arm it's about everything And uh, it would be wonderful if we were competing to provide aid um as for cooperation We better hope we can cooperate because the current crisis and now the compounding one that erin and joe and erin and Everyone laid out that's coming soon Um is something that neither china nor the united states can address alone So we better hope that we can work together and find a way to cooperate on this And wouldn't it be nice if that also helps us get on a better path with each other So that's my final word my answer Thank you all for the work that you do in this space. It's really important on climate change on disasters And on figuring out what covid means for all of that You're all important leaders in this field and we really appreciate Your time and your words today and for everyone who joined us. Thank you very much and stay safe