The number of natural disasters has doubled
The UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction said that since
This figure is well above the 4,212 majornatural disasters recorded between 1980 and 1999, according to a new UN office report entitled "The Human Cost of Disasters in 2000-2019."
The report says that a sharp increase inis largely associated with an increase in the number of climate-related natural disasters, including extreme weather events such as floods, droughts and storms.
Extreme heat is especially dangerous.
"We are deliberately destructive", - saidreporters head of UNDRR (United Nations Office for Natural Disaster Reduction) Mami Mizutori at a virtual briefing. "This is the only conclusion that can be reached by analyzing disasters over the past 20 years."
She blamed governments for not doing enough to prevent climate threats and called for better preparedness for impending disasters.
Data excluding coronavirus
“The odds stack up against us when we're not inable to act on the basis of scientific evidence and early warning and invest in prevention, adaptation to climate change and disaster risk reduction, ”emphasizes Mizutori.
Biological hazards not included in the reportand disease-related disasters such as the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than one million people and infected over 37 million people in the past nine months.
But Mizutori suggested that the coronavirus was "the latest proof that political and business leaders have not yet tuned in to the world around them."
Monday's report showed that since the turn of the centurythere were 6,681 climate-related accidents recorded, up from 3,656 in the previous 20-year period. While the number of major floods more than doubled to 3,254, there were 2,034 major storms, up from 1,457 in the previous period.
Mizutori said public health authorities and rescuers "are fighting an ever-increasing wave of extreme weather events."
Although higher availability and early systemswarnings have helped reduce deaths in many natural disaster situations, she warned that "more people are suffering from an expanding climate emergency."
Countries most affected by disasters
The report was based on statistics from the database aboutemergency situations, in which all disasters are recorded, as a result of which 10 or more people died, 100 or more people were injured, or a state of emergency was declared.
The data showed that Asia suffered the most disasters in the last 20 years (3,068), followed by America with 1756 and Africa with 1192.
In terms of affected countries, China topped the list with 577 disasters, followed by the United States with 467 disasters.
Despite the fact that the climate is warming,appears to have led to an increase in the number and severity of such disasters, there has also been an increase in the number of geophysical events such as earthquakes and tsunamis, which are not climate related but are particularly deadly.
The deadliest natural disaster forthe last 20 years was the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, killing 226,400 people, followed by the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, killing about 222,000 people.
Biggest natural disasters caused by climate change
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Drought in the USA 2012</ p>
At that time, 26 US states were declared a natural disaster zone due to severe drought.A total of 1,016 counties were affected by the disaster.Due to the loss of the harvest in America, world grain prices jumped to a record level since 2008.Many feared a repeat of the events of four years ago, when rising prices turned into a food crisis.Crop losses from high temperatures in the U.S. were estimated at 30% in 2012. Total financial losses are estimated at $25 billion, the amount of insured damage is $12 billion.
- Forest fires in Siberia in the summer of 2019Since the end of July 2019, a sharp increase has been recorded in SiberiaBy August 1, it exceeded 3 million hectares.The most difficult situation is in the Irkutsk Region, the Krasnoyarsk Territory and Yakutia, where an emergency regime was introduced.According to the decision of the regional commissions, several hundred fires in hard-to-reach areas were not extinguished due to economic inexpediency.Area of fires both in the control zone and in remote areas at the time ofIn connection with the fires, 277 criminal cases have been initiated.In general, the losses from wildfires for the first half of 2019 were estimated by the Accounts Chamber at 2.4 billion rubles.
- Flooding in the Irkutsk region in 2019
In the Irkutsk region at the beginning of June 2019there was a major flood. Due to heavy lingering rains, the water level in the left-bank tributaries of the Angara rose sharply, 109 settlements fell into the flood zone. The flood took place in two waves. As a result of the first, 25 people were killed and six were missing. Flooded were 14,428 residential premises, of which more than a third cannot be repaired. The second wave of flood, which came at the end of July, covered 58 settlements and affected more than five thousand people. As a result, 450 more houses, which were planned to be renovated, proved to be unsuitable for restoration.
- Flooding in Europe in 2002
Economic damage: € 15 billion to €20 billion, according to press reports; according to the European Commission, Germany, the Czech Republic and Austria alone suffered damage worth €17.4 billion.
"The Flood of the Century" was the name given in the media to the large-scale disaster that swept 13 European countries in the summer of 2002.As a result of the rains that did not stop for a whole week, the rivers overflowed their banks: vast areas were flooded.The Czech Republic, Slovakia, Germany and Austria were particularly affected, claiming the lives of more than 230 people -
Heat in Europe in summer 2003</ p>
In June and August 2003, there was a record heat wave in Europe.France, Germany and Switzerland were particularly affected by the abnormal temperatures.In total, forty thousand Europeans died during the abnormally hot weather, most of them French.At this time, the mortality rate in France increased 300 times.Fish populations in the Mediterranean, grape and wheat crops were also damaged. Dead: 35 thousand people.
- Fires in Russia in summer 2010
In June, in the capital of the Russian Federation, the temperaturea record for 130 years - the city was hit by a 40-degree heat, due to which the stores ran out of fans, air conditioners and water pistols, the windows in the Moscow City office center shattered, the asphalt on the streets was hot, and the metro was impossible to be located: the ventilation system could not cope with the increased temperature. People were waiting for rain so furiously that its appearance became a world event - the Russian word "rain" entered the top of Twitter. Further - more: fires in the Moscow region brought smog to the capital. When the visibility on the roads dropped to 50-100 meters, and the doctors sounded the alarm, Muscovites began to leave the capital. The Ministry of Emergency Situations fought with fires for almost two months, during which time 127 settlements were destroyed.
Disasters due to weather
Due to the increase in extreme weatherconditions and natural disasters experts in a new UN report called for additional efforts to predict impending natural disasters and early action to mitigate their consequences.
Ask, not “what the weather will be like, but why is itwill lead ”- this is the main message in the latest report of the organization. It is the change in weather that leads to ever more destructive disasters. Over the past 50 years, there have been more than 11,000 weather-related natural disasters around the world, killing about two million people and losing about $ 3.6 trillion to the global economy.
And especially in recent decades, changeclimate has led to an increase in the frequency, intensity and severity of such disasters, according to a report coordinated by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). It noted that in 2018 storms, floods, droughts and wildfires forced 108 million people to seek help from the international humanitarian system.
It is estimated that this number could increase by almost 50 percent by 2030.
What can save lives?
Early warning systems proved to be vitalimportant in reducing the risk of such disasters, highlighting how such systems have helped significantly reduce mortality from disasters in places such as Bangladesh.
“Early warning systems area precondition for effective disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation, ”WMO Chief Petteri Taalas said in a statement. “The ability to be prepared and to be able to respond at the right time and in the right place can save many lives and protect the livelihoods of communities around the world.”
The report calls on countries to move beyondthe framework of simple weather forecasting and invest in so-called "impact-based forecasting" - a system aimed at more effective initiation of early action based on warnings. Such systems seek to better understand and anticipate the likely human and economic consequences of catastrophic weather conditions.
But so far, less than 40 percent of 138WMO Member States have established such systems, the report says. This means that, on average, one in three people worldwide is still not covered by early warning systems.
Unsurprisingly, the biggest gapsfound in the poorest countries, and especially in Africa. And while significant technological advances have been made in recent years, the systems adopted in many developing countries are still poorly suited to their needs. Across Africa, only 44 percent of people in countries for which data are available have any access to early warnings.
“The rise in the number of climate-related natural disasters indicates the need for increased investment in adaptation across the board,” especially in Africa, the report says.
The report provides more than a dozen examples of countries and regions that have benefited enormously from early warning systems.
For example, in Bangladesh, where natural disastersdisasters such as floods and cyclones have killed an estimated 520,000 people over the past 40 years, warning systems have helped reduce the death toll from recent disasters to one hundredth of those suffered in similar events decades ago.
At the same time, in Europe, a forest fire warning system costing less than € 2.0 million has helped the continent avoid losses of between € 255 and 375 million annually.
In addition, Australia has implemented a warning systemheatwaves, which the UN views as the greatest climate-related challenge the world will face in the coming decades, have helped dramatically reduce the number of additional heat-related deaths, the report said.
Despite the fact that Covid-19 caused a majoran international health and economic crisis that will take years to recover, it is important to remember that climate change will continue to pose an ongoing and growing threat to human lives, ecosystems, economies and societies. centuries to come, experts say.
The report outlines six recommendations that the authors consider critical:
- Invest to fill capacity gaps in early warning systems, especially in Africa's least developed countries and small island states.
- Focus your investment on turning early warning information into early action.
- Provide sustainable funding for the global observing system that underpins early warning.
- Track financial flows to better understand where these resources are being allocated in relation to early warning needs and the impact that this has.
- Improve consistency in monitoring and evaluation to better measure the effectiveness of early warning systems.
- Fill the data gaps, especially in small island developing States.
“COVID-19 has made risk a common cause,” -concludes Mizutori. "We need to bring this understanding and momentum into a much larger fight for our planet against a larger, stronger and more devastating climate emergency."
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