Geneva Weather-related disasters have surged over the past 50
years, causing swelling economic damage even as early warning
systems have meant dramatically fewer deaths, the United Nations
said Monday.
Extreme weather, climate and water-related events caused 11,778
reported disasters between 1970 and 2021, new figures from the UNs
World Meteorological Organization (WMO) show.
Those disasters killed just over two million people and caused
$4.3 trillion in economic losses.
The most vulnerable communities unfortunately bear the brunt of
weather, climate and water-related hazards, WMO chief Petteri
Taalas said in a statement.
The report found that over 90 percent of reported deaths
worldwide due to disasters over the 51-year-period occurred in
developing countries.
But the agency also said improved early warning systems and
coordinated disaster management had significantly reduced the human
casualty toll.
WMO pointed out in a report issued two years ago covering
disaster-linked deaths and losses between 1970 and 2019, that at
the beginning of the period the world was seeing more than 50,000
such deaths each year.
By the 2010s, the disaster death toll had dropped to below
20,000 annually.
And in its update of that report, WMO said Monday that 22,608
disaster deaths were recorded globally in 2020 and 2021
combined.
Early warnings save lives
Cyclone Mocha, which wreaked havoc in Myanmar and Bangladesh
last week, exemplifies this, Taalas said.
Mocha caused widespread devastation impacting the poorest of the
poor, he said.
But while Myanmars junta has put the death toll from the cyclone
at 145, Taalas pointed out that during similar disasters in the
past, both Myanmar and Bangladesh suffered death tolls of tens and
even hundreds of thousands of people.
Thanks to early warnings and disaster management these
catastrophic mortality rates are now thankfully history. Early
warnings save lives.
The UN has launched a plan to ensure all nations are covered by
disaster early warning systems by the end of 2027.
Endorsing that plan figures among the top strategic priorities
during a meeting of WMOs decision-making body, the World
Meteorological Congress, which opens Monday.
To date, only half of countries have such systems in place.
Surging economic losses
WMO meanwhile warned that while deaths have plunged, the
economic losses incurred when weather, climate and water extremes
hit have soared.
The agency previously recorded economic losses increased
sevenfold between 1970 and 2019, rising from $49 million per day
during the first decade to $383 million per day in the final
one.
Wealthy countries have been hardest hit by far in monetary
terms.
The United States alone incurred $1.7 tr...