Extreme weather has caused the deaths of 2 million people and $4.3 trillion in economic damage over the past half a century, a report by the United Nations finds.
\nAccording to the new figures published on Monday from the UN\u2019s World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), 11,778 weather-related disasters have occurred from 1970 to 2021, and they have surged over that period.
\nThe report found that more than 90 percent of deaths reported worldwide due to these disasters took place in developing countries.
\n\u201cThe most vulnerable communities unfortunately bear the brunt of weather, climate and water-related hazards,\u201d WMO chief Petteri Taalas said in a statement.
\nCyclone Mocha, which wreaked havoc in Myanmar and Bangladesh last week, exemplified this reality, Taalas said.
\nThe severe storm \u201ccaused widespread devastation, \u2026 impacting the poorest of the poor\u201d, he said.
\nBut the WMO also said improved early warning systems and coordinated disaster management had significantly reduced human casualties.
\nTaalas pointed out that during disasters similar to Mocha in the past, \u201cboth Myanmar and Bangladesh suffered death tolls of tens and even hundreds of thousands of people.\u201d Myanmar\u2019s military government has put the death toll from the latest cyclone at 145, but there are fears the number is higher.
\nIn a 2021 report covering disaster-linked deaths and losses from 1970 to 2019, the agency had 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.
\nAnd in its update of that report, the WMO said Monday that 22,608 disaster deaths were recorded globally in 2020 and 2021 combined.
\n\u201cThanks to early warnings and disaster management these catastrophic mortality rates are now thankfully history,\u201d the report said. \u201cEarly warnings save lives.\u201d
\nThe 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\u2019s countries have such systems in place.
\nEconomic lossesThe WMO, meanwhile, warned that while deaths have plunged, the economic losses incurred in weather-related disasters have soared.
\nThe agency previously recorded economic losses had increased sevenfold from 1970 to 2019, rising from $49m per day during the first decade to $383m per day in the final one.
\nWealthy countries have been hardest hit by far in monetary terms.
\nDeveloped nations accounted for more than 60 percent of losses due to weather, climate and water disasters, but in more than four-fifths of cases, the economic losses for each disaster were equivalent to less than 0.1 percent of gross domestic product (GDP).
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