According to a United Nations report, extreme weather events have killed two million people and caused $4.3 trillion in economic damage over the last half-century.
According to new figures released on Monday by the United Nations World Meteorological Organisation, 11,778 weather-related disasters occurred between 1970 and 2021, with the number increasing over that time.
More than 90% of the deaths reported worldwide as a result of these disasters occurred in developing countries.
The most vulnerable communities, unfortunately, bear the brunt of weather, climate and water-related hazards, WMO chief Petteri Taalas said in a statement.
Taalas cited Cyclone Moncha, which wreaked havoc in Myanmar and Bangladesh last week, as an example of this reality.
He stated that the severe storm “caused widespread devastation, affecting the poorest of the poor.”
However, the World Meteorological Organisation stated that improved early warning systems and coordinated disaster management had significantly reduced human casualties.
Taalas noted that in previous disasters similar to Mocha, “both Myanmar and Bangladesh suffered death tolls of tens and even hundreds of thousands of people.” The military government of Myanmar has put the death toll from the latest cyclone at 145, but there are fears that the figure is higher.
According to a 2021 report covering disaster-related deaths and losses from 1970 to 2019, the world saw more than 50,000 such deaths per year at the start of the period. By the 2010s, the annual disaster death toll had fallen below 20,000.
The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) said Monday in an update to that report that 22,608 disaster deaths were recorded globally in 2020 and 2021 combined.
Thanks to early warnings and disaster management, these catastrophic mortality rates are now thankfully history, the report said. 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. To date, only half of the world’s countries have such systems in place.
Meanwhile, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) warned that, while deaths have decreased, economic losses from weather-related disasters have increased.
From 1970 to 2019, the agency recorded economic losses that increased sevenfold, from $49 million per day in the first decade to $383 million per day in the last.
In terms of money, wealthy countries have been hit the hardest.
Developed countries accounted for more than 60% of losses due to weather, climate, and water disasters, but in more than four-fifths of cases, economic losses were less than 0.1 percent of gross domestic product.