The Human Cost of Weather Related Disasters: 1995 -2015
Type: Report
Description: This publication provides a sober and revealing analysis of weather-related disaster trends over a twenty year time-frame which coincides with a period which has seen the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of the Parties become an established high- profile annual fixture on the development calendar. The contents of this report underline why it is so important that a new climate change agreement emerges from the COP21 in Paris in December.
Climate change, climate variability and weather events pose a threat to the eradication of extreme poverty and should serve as a spur to hasten efforts not only to reduce greenhouse gas emissions but also to tackle other underlying risk drivers such as unplanned urban development, vulnerable livelihoods, environmental degradation and gaps in early warnings.
The report highlights many key shortcomings in understanding the nature and true extent of disaster losses, particularly from drought despite the fact that it accounts for more than 25% of all people affected by climate-related disasters. There must be greater support to countries struggling to measure their losses so they can improve both risk reduction efforts and overall understanding of where the focus needs tobe to reduce those very losses.
The more we understand the causes and consequences of risk generation and accumulation, the better we will be able to adapt, mitigate and prevent in the future,whatever that future may have in store for us.
Author(s): M. Wahlstrom and D. Guha-Sapir
Publisher(s): Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) and United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR)
Date: 2015
Pages: 30
Publication Page: https://cred.be/HCWRD
Subjects:
- Vulnerability
- Human Health
- Vulnerable Groups
- Droughts
- Human Security
Related Organisation(s):
Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED)
United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR)