UN Geneva - Multimedia Newsroom : WMO - UNDRR Press Conference: Atlas of Mortality Report 01 September 2021

Climate and weather-related disasters surge five-fold over 50 years, but early warnings save lives - WMO report

Climate change and increasingly extreme weather events have caused a surge in natural disasters over the past 50 years disproportionately impacting poorer countries, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) said on Wednesday.

According to the agencies' Atlas of Mortality and Economic Losses from Weather, Climate and Water Extremes, from 1970 to 2019, these natural hazards accounted for 50 per cent of all disasters, 45 per cent of all reported deaths and 74 per cent of all reported economic losses.

There were more than 11,000 reported disasters attributed to these hazards globally, with just over two million deaths and $3.64 trillion in losses. More than 91 per cent of the deaths occurred in developing countries.

But the news is not all bad. Thanks to improved early warning systems and disaster management, the number of deaths decreased almost threefold between 1970 and 2019; falling from 50,000 in the 1970s to less than 20,000 in the 2010s, the report explained.

“We are going to see more climatic extremes because of climate change and these negative trends in climate will continue for the coming decades,” WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas said at the report launch, adding that “if we are successful with climate mitigation, we could stop this negative trend around the 2060s”.

According to the Atlas, from 1970 to 2019, weather, climate and water hazards accounted for 50 per cent of all disasters, 45 per cent of all reported deaths and 74 per cent of all reported economic losses. There were more than 11,000 reported disasters attributed to these hazards globally, with just over two million deaths and $3.64 trillion in losses.

More than 91 per cent of the deaths occurred in developing countries. Of the top 10 disasters, droughts proved to be the deadliest hazard during the period, causing 650,000 deaths, followed by storms that led to 577,232 deaths; floods, which took 58,700 lives, and extreme temperature events, during which 55,736 died.

However, the report found that “heatwaves have become a new thing, which was not observed in the past. This is a follow-up of climate change and warming of the planet” said Professor Taalas. Meanwhile, economic losses have increased sevenfold from the 1970s to the 2010s, from an average of $49 million to $383 million per day globally.

“We have seen more than a tripling of the damage during the past decade,” said Professor Taalas. Storms, the most prevalent cause of damage, resulted in the largest economic losses around the globe. “Number two is flooding,” the WMO chief said.

Three of the costliest 10 disasters, all hurricanes that occurred in 2017, accounted for 35 per cent of total economic disaster losses around the world from 1970 to 2019. In the United States, Hurricane Harvey caused $96.9 billion in damage, Maria in the Caribbean 69.4 billion, and Irma $58.2 billion in Cape Verde. “The “50-year trend is quite, quite alarming, said Mami Mizutori, Assistant Secretary-General and Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction, United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR). COVID-19 and extreme weather events "attacking us at the same time” have created a “multi-hazard war world” which “demonstrates that we really need to invest more in disaster risk reduction in prevention”, she said.

Only half of the 193 members of WMO have multi-hazard early warning systems and there are severe gaps in weather and hydrological observing networks in Africa, some parts of Latin America and in Pacific and Caribbean island states, the report warned. “Developing countries are not so fortunate,” said Ms. Mizutori. “They lack resources both financially and in terms of human resources. They do not have the resources to invest in disaster-resilient infrastructure, multi-hazard warning systems or risk modelling. And this is the problem that we need to overcome”.

There must be greater investment in comprehensive disaster risk management to ensure that climate change adaptation is integrated in national and local disaster risk reduction strategies, the UNDRR chief said. The Atlas further recommends that countries should review their hazard exposure and vulnerability taking into consideration the changing climate to reflect that tropical cyclones may have different tracks, intensity and speed than in the past. It also calls for the development of integrated and proactive policies on slow-onset disasters such as drought.

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