Despite the fact that extreme weather phenomena have increased significantly in 50 years due to climate change, they cause fewer deaths than before.
Despite the explosive growth of natural disasters caused by extreme weather events, they cause fewer deaths than before.
This is revealed by the World Meteorological Organization under the UN, WMO from a recent report (you switch to another service).
According to the organization, extreme weather phenomena caused 11,778 natural disasters between 1970 and 2021.
A little over two million people were killed in them, and they caused more than four trillion euros in economic damage.
More than 90 percent of the deaths occurred in developing countries.
– Unfortunately, the most vulnerable suffer the most from weather, climate and water disasters, WMO Director General Petteri Taalas said.
The number of fatalities decreased
According to the report, clearly fewer people die from natural disasters than before.
While at the beginning of the measurement period there were up to 50,000 deaths per year, their number has since decreased to 20,000 per year.
According to the WMO, this is thanks to improved warning systems and better preparation for natural disasters than before.
According to Taalas, a good example of this is Cyclone Mocha, which hit Myanmar and Bangladesh last week.
While previously equally powerful cyclones have caused the death of even hundreds of thousands of people at their worst, now only 145 people died in Myanmar, according to the military junta leading the country.
According to the WMO, this has been influenced by the fact that both countries have a cyclone warning system in place and the countries are better prepared than before.
– Due to warning systems and better preparation, the previous catastrophically high death rates are history, Taalas said.
At the same time, however, the WMO reminded that the size category of economic damages has grown significantly.
While in the 1970s natural disasters caused an average of 45 million euros in damage per day, this has now increased to 354 million euros per day.
The United States alone has lost more than one and a half trillion euros, i.e. 1,500,000,000,000 euros, since 1970 due to natural disasters.