Between 1970-2021, around two million people died from extreme meteorological, climatic or hydrological phenomena, according to new data from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
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This specialized UN body updated its data until 2021 and revealed that 90% of fatal victims were recorded in developing countries.
The 11.778 disasters recorded in the 51 years studied caused losses of 4,3 trillion dollars (21,4 trillion reais at current prices), he indicated.
“The most vulnerable communities are, unfortunately, those most affected by meteorological, climate and hydrological risks,” said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas.
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However, the UN agency emphasized that improved warning systems and coordinated disaster management have considerably reduced the number of casualties.
For Taalas, it is a priority that these warning systems reach the entire world population because they allow people to prepare, protect themselves and escape from risky places in time.
The goal, shared by the UN Secretary General, is to protect the entire world by 2027.
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The WMO emphasized that these systems not only save lives, but also “multiply by at least ten the return on investment”.
In South America, 943 catastrophes were recorded attributed to meteorological, climatic and hydrological phenomena and 61% were floods. These phenomena caused the deaths of 58.484 people and losses of 115,2 billion dollars (574,2 billion reais, at current prices).
Economic losses
Currently, only half of countries have this type of alert systems and coverage is especially poor in Africa and poorer countries.
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The WMO countries are meeting in Geneva starting this Monday and are studying ratifying this initiative, in which the UN Office for Disaster Reduction, the International Telecommunications Union and the international federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent also participate. , with the participation of other actors, from financial institutions to the private sector.
One example is Cyclone Mocha, which wreaked havoc in Myanmar and Bangladesh last week, Taalas said.
Mocha, whose death toll rose to 145, according to the Myanmar Junta, “caused widespread devastation (…) affecting the poorest of the poor”, said the secretary-general, who qualified that this number of victims is much lower than the left by similar catastrophes in the past.
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“Thanks to early warning and disaster management, these catastrophic death rates are now, thankfully, a thing of the past. Preventative alerts save lives,” he said.
On the other hand, economic losses soared.
In monetary terms, the most affected were rich countries, but if the damage is compared to the size of the economies of the affected nations, it was the poorest countries that suffered the greatest losses, points out the WMO.
The United States suffered losses of 1,7 trillion dollars (8,4 trillion reais at current prices), equivalent to 39% of total losses worldwide since 1970.
Developed countries recorded more than 60% of losses due to meteorological, climate or water disasters, but in more than 80% of cases these losses are equivalent to less than 0,1% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
In comparison, in 7% of catastrophes that affected the poorest countries, losses reached more than 5% of GDP. In some cases, there are disasters that caused losses equivalent to almost a third of GDP.
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