“Our home is on fire now, but it was built to burn. It was built for this kind of danger because it was built on inequality and systematic oppression”denounced during an interview with infobae in 2021 the intellectual and environmental activist Naomi Klein. This is becoming increasingly evident with the increasing occurrence of weather, climate and water extremes around the world. Because natural disasters have not only caused millions of deaths globally, but have directly and indirectly hindered the social and economic development of entire nations.
Avalanches, droughts, heat waves, floods, forest fires, tornadoes, tropical cyclones, and landslides are just some of the events that have devastated entire communities.
The World Meteorological Organization, created in 1950 within the UN, updated its Atlas of Mortality and Economic Losses from Hazards Related to Weather, Climate and Water, and its data now covers the period from 1970 to 2021. Thus update releases devastating data: extreme weather, climate and hydrological events caused 11,778 disasters that caused more than 2 million deaths and 4.3 trillion dollars in economic losses.
While thanks to the improvement of early warnings and coordinated disaster management in the last half century the number of fatalities has been drastically reduced – more than 90% of registered deaths worldwide occurred in developing countries – , economic losses have skyrocketed.
In the United States alone, losses amounting to $1.7 trillion, representing 39% of global economic losses in the 51 years covered by the WMO Atlas. However, in the poorer and smaller countries losses were disproportionately high relative to the size of their economies.
“Unfortunately, the most vulnerable communities bear the brunt of weather, climate and hydrological hazards,” said WMO Secretary-General Professor Petteri Taalas. “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.”
The number of deaths recorded by the publication -which was made from the International Disaster Database (EM-DAT) of the Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED)- in 2020 and 2021 is 22,608, a figure that shows a further decrease in mortality in relation to the annual average of the previous decade. But the economic losses increased, as did the impact on less powerful nations.
More than 60% of the economic losses due to disasters occurred in developed economies, but they accounted for less than 0.1% of the gross domestic product (GDP) of the respective economies in more than four fifths of these disasters. In contrast, in the least developed countries, 7% of the disasters that caused economic losses had an impact equivalent to more than 5% of the GDP of the affected countries.
In small island developing States, 20% of disasters that caused economic losses had an impact equivalent to more than 5% of the GDP of the affected countries and some disasters caused economic losses greater than 100% of the respective GDP.
In Africabetween 1970 and 2021 there were 1,839 disasters related to extreme events, which caused 733,585 deaths and 43,000 million dollars in economic losses. Droughts were the cause of 95% of recorded deaths. tropical cyclone Idaiin March 2019, was the meteorological episode that caused the most economic losses on this continent: 2,100 million dollars.
On the other hand, in Asia 3,612 disasters were registered that caused 984,263 deaths and $1.4 trillion in economic losses during the same period. 47% of all registered deaths in the world occurred, of which tropical cyclones were the main cause. bangladesh it has the highest number of fatalities in Asia, with 520,758 due to 281 episodes.
In South America, 943 disasters were registered -of which floods represent 61%- and caused 58,484 deaths and 115,200 million dollars in economic losses. In North America, Central America and the Caribbean, there were 2,107 extreme natural disasters that caused 77,454 deaths and economic losses of US$2 trillion.
Meanwhile, in the Southwest Pacific there were 1,493 disasters related to extreme weather, climate and hydrological events that caused 66,951 deaths and 185.8 billion dollars in economic losses. Tropical cyclones were the leading cause of death.
Finally, in Europe there were 1,784 disasters what caused 166,492 deaths and 562,000 million dollars in economic losses.
This Region produced 8% of the deaths registered worldwide between 1970 and 2021. Extreme temperatures were the main cause of registered deaths and floods, the main cause of economic losses.
“Economic losses have skyrocketed. But improved early warnings and coordinated disaster management have drastically reduced the number of human casualties over the past half century. According to this organization, the objective of the Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterresis “to achieve that all the inhabitants of the Earth are protected by early warning systems by the end of 2027″.
According to this report, early warning systems are a proven and effective climate adaptation measure that saves lives and whose return is almost tenfold on the investment made. However, he warns, “only half of the countries have these systems and, in small island developing States, the least developed countries and Africa, coverage is especially low.”
Keep reading:
Naomi Klein: “Our home is on fire, but it was built to explode”
Deforestation: the COVID-19 crisis highlights the need to save forests more than ever
Source-www.infobae.com