In the recent news, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), an agency of the United Nations, revealed a concerning report. The report underlined that over the past 50 years, weather-related disasters have claimed the lives of 2 million people. The WMO published the ‘Atlas of Mortality and Economic Losses from Weather, Climate and Water Extremes, from 1970 to 2019’ to highlight these trends in detail.
Key Findings of the Report
According to the report, the number of such disastrous events has risen fivefold over the 50-year period, primarily because of climate change, increasing extreme weather, and enhanced reporting mechanisms. It is noted that from 1970 to 2019, weather, climate, and water hazards accounted for half of all disasters, 45% of reported deaths, and 74% of reported economic losses. Most tragically, over 91% of these deaths occurred in developing countries. Droughts, storms, floods, and extreme temperature were identified as the leading causes.
The Bright Spot: Decreasing Number of Deaths
Amidst these grim statistics, a positive development was observed. The number of deaths experienced an almost threefold decrease between 1970 and 2019, thanks to improved early warning systems and effective disaster management.
The Economic Impact
The report shared that during this 50-year period, on average, damage worth US$ 202 million dollars occurred every day. These economic losses have seen a sevenfold increase from the 1970s to the 2010s. Among the causes of these damages, storms were the most prevalent and led to the largest economic losses globally.
Climate Change Footprints
The report signified an alarming future marked by increased occurrences of weather, climate, and water extremes due to climate change. It speculated that these events will manifest more frequently and severely in many regions worldwide. Excessive water vapor in the atmosphere has intensified extreme rainfall and flooding, while warming oceans have affected the frequency and extent of intense tropical storms. This has increased the vulnerability of regions like low-lying megacities, deltas, coasts, and islands.
Failure of Sendai Framework
The WMO report also highlighted the failure to achieve the disaster reduction targets set out in the 2015 Sendai Framework. It warns that this failure endangers the ability of developing nations to eradicate poverty and reach other vital Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The Sendai Framework was adopted in 2015 at the Third United Nations World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction held in Miyagi, Japan. It concerns the risk management and mitigation for both large-scale and small-scale disasters, frequent and uncommon, sudden and slow-onset, caused by natural or human-made hazards, including related environmental, technological, and biological hazards and risks.
Recommendations for the Future
Despite these daunting observations, the report offered several recommendations. It emphasized the need for adaptability, with only half of WMO’s 193 member countries having multi-hazard early warning systems. It underlined the dire need for such systems in developing and under-developed countries. Coupled with this, it stressed the necessity for comprehensive disaster risk management to integrate climate change adaptation into national and local disaster risk reduction strategies. The report also urged countries to review hazard exposure and vulnerability considering a changing climate, particularly concerning tropical cyclones which may exhibit different tracks, intensity, and speed than in the past. The development of proactive policies on slow-onset disasters like drought was another recommendation.
The report concluded by presenting positive measures undertaken by India recently. These include the establishment of the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI), the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), and the National Disaster Management Plan (NDMP).
Last Modified: February 13, 2024