A report by the United Nations has revealed that extreme weather conditions have caused the deaths of two million people and $4.3 trillion in economic damage over the past half a century.
According to the new figures published on Monday from the UN’s World Meteorological Organisation, 11,778 weather-related disasters have occurred from 1970 to 2021, and they have surged over that period.
More than 90% of deaths reported worldwide due to these disasters took place 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.
Cyclone Moncha, which wreaked havoc in Myanmar and Bangladesh last week, exemplified this reality, Taalas said.
The severe storm “caused widespread devastation, impacting the poorest of the poor”, he said.
But the WMO mentioned that improved early warning systems and coordinated disaster management had significantly reduced human casualties.
“Thanks to early warnings and disaster management, these catastrophic mortality rates are now thankfully history,” the report said. “Early warnings save lives.”
In a 2021 report covering disaster-linked deaths and losses from 1970 to 2019, the agency pointed out that at the beginning of the period, the world saw more than 50,000 such deaths each year. By the 2010s, the disaster death toll had dropped to below 20,000 annually.
Meanwhile, the UN has launched a plan to ensure all nations are covered by disaster early warning systems by the end of 2027. So far, only half of the world’s countries have such systems in place.
