Access Partnership and Partners Release Whitepaper on The Role of Satellite Communications in Disaster Management

LONDON, UK – Media OutReach – 10 March 2022 – Access Partnership, the leading global public policy firm for the tech sector has released a Whitepaper addressing the need to further utilise satellite technology for disaster management. This seminal paper highlights the crucial role that satellite services and next-generation satellite-enabled connectivity will have in saving millions of lives and reducing government expenditure during and post disaster. Providing unique data, the document forecasts the economic impact and future burden countries will face if disaster communications planning is not taken seriously.

This Whitepaper was released together with following partners, under the umbrella of the Fair Tech Institute:

• CANLA: The Climate Action Network Latin America (CANLA), is a regional network of non-governmental organizations committed to fighting the causes and harmful effects of climate change.
• AlphaBeta: AB provides strategic advice that leads to new, innovative, and practical solutions addressing issues ranging from automation of jobs, biodiversity loss to poverty alleviation.
• TSFI: Télécoms Sans Frontières (TSF) is the world’s first NGO focusing on emergency-response technologies.
• GSOA: The pre-eminent platform for collaboration between satellite operators globally, providing a unified voice for the sector.

As the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) showed in its latest report, released in August 2021, the immediate effects of global climate change are widespread, rapid and accelerating.

This Whitepaper focuses on the undeniably necessary call to action:

Call to Action for Governments and Stakeholders:

• Providing clear strategies to minimise damages.
• Increasing speed of response in critical times.
• Regulating for future technologies that may assist rapid rescue.
• Multiplying resources by partnering with the private sector.

For more information on the Whitepaper and best practice for effective policy planning, download the “The Role of Satellite Communications in Disaster Management“.

As natural disasters increase yearly, satellite networks will help save millions of lives

As the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) showed in its latest report, released in August 2021, the immediate effects of global climate change are widespread, rapid and accelerating. For cities in temperate latitudes, this means more heat waves and shorter cold seasons. In subtropical and tropical latitudes, it means wetter rainy seasons and hotter dry seasons. Most coastal cities will be threatened by sea level rise. Although most types of weather-related disasters are likely to become more common across all regions, global heating above 1.5C will be “catastrophic” for island nations and could lead to the loss of entire countries due to sea level rise within the century.

Providing unique data, Access Partnership’s newly published paper “The Role of Satellite Communications in Disaster Management” shows that the impact of natural disasters will be concentrated among low- and middle-income countries, which are relatively less prepared to adapt. The paper shows that natural disasters currently cost the agricultural sector of these economies more than USD 108 billion in damaged crop and livestock production. Should the level of financing in climate adaptability remain low, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) estimates that climate change adaptation and natural disaster damages would cost developing countries a range of USD 280 to USD 500 billion per year by 2050, a figure four to five times higher than previous estimates.