Half a year after the closure of the COP 27 held in Egypt, the countries most affected by climate change are still waiting for news of the promised fund for damages and losses agreed to alleviate the effects of climate change. Extreme flooding, stifling heat waves, prolonged drought and raging fires have multiplied in recent years, raising the toll for these weather events.
The bill in the last 50 years there have been 11,778 disasters that have left more than 2 million deaths worldwide and an economic cost that exceeds 4,300 billion euros. “More than 60% of the economic losses due to disasters of a meteorological, climatic and hydrological nature were registered in developed economies,” warns the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
However, the losses caused only represent 0.1% of GDP in developed countries, while the range of the footprint left in the economy of non-developed countries ranges from 5% to 30%. “In some island states they accounted for up to 100% of the economy,” the report warns.
“Unfortunately, the most vulnerable communities bear the brunt of weather, climate and hydrological hazards,” says WMO Secretary-General Professor Petteri Taalas. According to data from the organization dependent on the United Nations, this increase is due to storms.
alerts save lives
Despite the fact that the economic bill has not stopped growing in the period 1970-2021, the balance of human losses has been progressively decreasing. “This is due to the improvement of early warning systems,” reveals the WMO.
The number of deaths registered in 2020 and 2021 (22,608 in total) shows a new decrease in mortality in relation to the annual average of the previous decade. “The extremely strong cyclonic storm Mocha is a case in point. It caused widespread devastation in Myanmar and Bangladesh, affecting the poorest groups of the population. Before, in both countries there were tens and even hundreds of thousands of fatalities. Fortunately, thanks to early warning and disaster management, these catastrophic mortality rates are now history. Early warnings save lives”, highlight the authors of the report.
2,000,000
deaths in the last 50 years
due to extreme weather events
Early warning systems are a proven and effective climate adaptation measure that save lives and whose return is almost ten times the investment made. However, only half of the countries have these systems, and in small island developing States, least developed countries and Africa, coverage is particularly low.
Asia, the hardest hit
In this Atlas of climatic disasters, the least disadvantaged regions is Europe with barely 8% of deaths from these causes, “mainly due to high temperatures.” The Old Continent accumulated between 1970 and 2021, 1,784 disasters that caused 166,492 deaths and half a billion euros in economic losses.
Virtually the same disasters were experienced in Africa, but the total numbers are different. The deceased quadrupled to reach 733,585, where droughts were the cause of 95% of deaths. “Early warning systems in Africa are not as developed,” says the United Nations. While the economic losses barely exceed 43,000 million euros.
Precisely, North America, Central America and the Caribbean accumulate almost 50% of the money lost related to meteorological, climatic and hydrological phenomena. In this region of the planet, these events caused 77,454 deaths and 2 billion euros. “In the United States alone it accounts for 39% of global economic losses in the 51 years covered by the Atlas. Most of the recorded economic losses were attributed to storm-related disasters, and more specifically tropical cyclones,” the report notes. In the case of South America, 58,484 deaths and 115,200 million euros in losses were recorded in this period.
However, cyclones are the main causes of human and economic losses on the planet. Between 1970 and 2021, Asia accounted for 47% of all recorded deaths in the world, of which tropical cyclones are the leading cause. In 2008, Tropical Cyclone Nargis caused 138,366 deaths. Bangladesh has the highest number of fatalities in Asia: 520,758 deaths from 281 episodes. The total figures for the continent amount to 984,263 deaths and 1.4 trillion euros in economic losses.
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