Climate change spurs doubling of disasters since 2000: UN
Skip to main content
  • Home
  • Economy
  • Stocks
  • Analysis
  • World+Biz
  • Sports
  • Splash
  • Features
  • Videos
  • Long Read
  • Games
  • Epaper
  • More
    • COVID-19
    • Bangladesh
    • Infograph
    • Interviews
    • Offbeat
    • Thoughts
    • Podcast
    • Quiz
    • Tech
    • Subscribe
    • Archive
    • Trial By Trivia
    • Magazine
    • Supplement
  • বাংলা
The Business Standard
THURSDAY, MAY 19, 2022
THURSDAY, MAY 19, 2022
  • Home
  • Economy
  • Stocks
  • Analysis
  • World+Biz
  • Sports
  • Splash
  • Features
  • Videos
  • Long Read
  • Games
  • Epaper
  • More
    • COVID-19
    • Bangladesh
    • Infograph
    • Interviews
    • Offbeat
    • Thoughts
    • Podcast
    • Quiz
    • Tech
    • Subscribe
    • Archive
    • Trial By Trivia
    • Magazine
    • Supplement
  • বাংলা
Climate change spurs doubling of disasters since 2000: UN

Climate Change

BSS/AFP
13 October, 2020, 09:45 am
Last modified: 13 October, 2020, 09:50 am

Related News

  • Climate change costing poor women in Bangladesh up to 30% of their outgoings
  • Ukraine war could cause global food crisis: UN
  • N Korea Covid outbreak could have 'devastating' impact on human rights, UN says
  • Climate change is hurting insurers: Report
  • Pcycle: Turning waste from bins into beautiful crafts

Climate change spurs doubling of disasters since 2000: UN

Extreme heat is proving especially deadly

BSS/AFP
13 October, 2020, 09:45 am
Last modified: 13 October, 2020, 09:50 am
Climate change is causing various natural disaster. Photo :BSS/AFP
Climate change is causing various natural disaster. Photo :BSS/AFP

Climate change is largely to blame for a near doubling of natural disasters in the past 20 years, the United Nations said on Monday.

The UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction said 7,348 major disaster events had occurred between 2000 and 2019, claiming 1.23 lives, affecting 4.2 billion people and costing the global economy some $2.97 trillion.

The figure far outstrips the 4,212 major natural disasters recorded between 1980 and 1999, the UN office said in a new report entitled "The Human Cost of Disasters 2000-2019".

The sharp increase was largely attributable to a rise in climate-related disasters, including extreme weather events like floods, drought and storms, the report said.

Extreme heat is proving especially deadly.

"We are wilfully destructive," UNDRR chief Mami Mizutori told reporters in a virtual briefing. "That is the only conclusion one can come to when reviewing disaster events over the last 20 years."

She accused governments of not doing enough to prevent climate hazards and called for better preparation for looming disasters.

– 'Uphill battle' –

"The odds are being stacked against us when we fail to act on science and early warnings to invest in prevention, climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction," she said.

The report did not touch on biological hazards and disease-related disasters like the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed over one million people and infected over 37 million in the past nine months.

But Mizutori suggested coronavirus was "the latest proof that political and business leaders are yet to tune in to the world around them".

Monday's report showed 6,681 climate-linked events had been recorded since the turn of the century, up from 3,656 during the previous 20-year-period.

While major floods had more than doubled to 3,254, there had been 2,034 major storms up from 1,457 in the prior period.

Mizutori said public health authorities and rescue workers were "fighting an uphill battle against an ever-rising tide of extreme weather events".

While better preparedness and early warning systems had helped bring down the number of deaths in many natural disaster settings, she warned that "more people are being affected by the expanding climate emergency".

– Deadliest disaster –

Monday's report relied on statistics from the Emergency Events Database, which records all disasters that kill 10 or more people, affect 100 or more people or result in a state of emergency declaration.

The data showed that Asia has suffered the highest number of disasters in the past 20 years with 3,068 such events, followed by the Americas with 1,756 and Africa with 1,192.

In terms of affected countries, China topped the list with 577 events followed by the United States with 467.

While a warming climate appeared to be driving the number and severity of such disasters, there had also been an increase in geophysical events like earthquakes and tsunamis that are not related to climate but are particularly deadly.

The deadliest single disaster in the past 20 years was the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, with 226,400 deaths, followed by the Haiti earthquake in 2010, which claimed some 222,000 lives.

Environment / World+Biz

climate change / UN

Comments

While most comments will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive, moderation decisions are subjective. Published comments are readers’ own views and The Business Standard does not endorse any of the readers’ comments.

Top Stories

  • Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal, Photo: TBS
    Annual foreign debts can be paid with two months’ remittance: Finance minister
  • Falling trade barriers and hyper-efficient logistics produced an age of abundance for many. But the last four years have brought an escalating series of disruptions.Source: Bloomberg
    Age of scarcity begins with $1.6 trillion hit to world economy
  • Turkey's President Tayyip Erdogan holds a news conference during the NATO summit at the Alliance's headquarters in Brussels, Belgium on 14 June  2021. Photo: Reuters
    Turkey has told allies it's a 'no' to Sweden and Finland's NATO bid - Erdogan

MOST VIEWED

  • Today, 1 billion of the world’s most vulnerable children are at extreme risk. If the world fails to act, tomorrow it will be all children. It is past time to put children at the center of climate action. Photo: Courtesy
    Climate change costing poor women in Bangladesh up to 30% of their outgoings
  • FILE PHOTO: A bleaching coral is seen in the place where abandoned fishing nets covered it in a reef at the protected area of Ko Losin, Thailand
    Oceans are hotter, higher and more acidic, climate report warns
  • An employee monitors molten iron being poured into a container at a steel plant in Hefei, Anhui province September 9, 2013. REUTERS/Stringer/File Photo
    Steel industry carbon emissions to drop nearly 1/3 by 2050: Woodmac
  • A polar bear and her cub on sea ice in the Arctic north of Svalbard (Image © Larissa Beumer / Greenpeace)
    Climate change is hurting insurers: Report
  • The soaring prices of carbon may encourage the largest polluters in Europe to decarbonise. PHOTO: REUTERS
    Energy firms' climate commitments lack credibility: Report
  • A boat lies on the bottom of Amazonas river, in the city of Manaus, Brazil, October 26, 2015. REUTERS/Bruno Kelly/File Photo
    World could see 1.5C of warming in next five years, WMO reports

Related News

  • Climate change costing poor women in Bangladesh up to 30% of their outgoings
  • Ukraine war could cause global food crisis: UN
  • N Korea Covid outbreak could have 'devastating' impact on human rights, UN says
  • Climate change is hurting insurers: Report
  • Pcycle: Turning waste from bins into beautiful crafts

Features

Sketch: TBS

'Food inflation is an unavoidable consequence of currency devaluation'

11h | Interviews
The open-browser-tabs question also tells an interviewer how much of an internet native the job applicant might be. Photo: Noor-a-Alam

The best question to ask a job applicant

11h | Pursuit
Illustration: TBS

Ugly business: Politics in workplace

10h | Pursuit
Illustration: TBS

‘Do you have insurance?’: Life of a life insurance agent

13h | Panorama

More Videos from TBS

Putin's strategies to face Nato

Putin's strategies to face Nato

16m | Videos
How many countries have nuclear weapons and how many are there?

How many countries have nuclear weapons and how many are there?

31m | Videos
Dengue fever is rising, so beware

Dengue fever is rising, so beware

41m | Videos
How a university teacher and PHD holder become farmer

How a university teacher and PHD holder become farmer

4h | Videos

Most Read

1
Representative Photo: Pixabay.
Bangladesh

Microplastics found in 5 local sugar brands

2
Mushfiq Mobarak. Photo: Noor-A-Alam
Panorama

Meet the Yale professor who anchors his research in Bangladesh and scales up interventions globally

3
The story of Bangladesh becoming a major bicycle exporter
Industry

The story of Bangladesh becoming a major bicycle exporter

4
How Bangladesh can achieve edible oil self-sufficiency with local alternatives
Bazaar

How Bangladesh can achieve edible oil self-sufficiency with local alternatives

5
Govt tightens belt to relieve reserve
Economy

Govt tightens belt to relieve reserve

6
PK Halder: How a scamster rose from humble beginnings to a Tk11,000cr empire
Crime

PK Halder: How a scamster rose from humble beginnings to a Tk11,000cr empire

The Business Standard
Top
  • Home
  • Entertainment
  • Sports
  • About Us
  • Bangladesh
  • International
  • Privacy Policy
  • Comment Policy
  • Contact Us
  • Economy
  • Sitemap
  • RSS

Contact Us

The Business Standard

Main Office -4/A, Eskaton Garden, Dhaka- 1000

Phone: +8801847 416158 - 59

Send Opinion articles to - oped.tbs@gmail.com

For advertisement- sales@tbsnews.net

Copyright © 2022 THE BUSINESS STANDARD All rights reserved. Technical Partner: RSI Lab