Yahoo News 11 Jun 09;
BONN, Germany (AFP) – Disasters caused by climate change will inflict the highest losses in poor countries with weak governments that have dashed for growth and failed to shield populations which settle in exposed areas, a UN report said on Thursday.
"Disaster risk is not evenly distributed," said the report, released on the sidelines of the world climate talks in Bonn, as it urged countries to shore up protection for their citizens.
From 1990 to 2007, loss of life and property from weather-related disasters rose significantly, with floods the biggest single cause, it said.
Large developing countries, led by China, India, Bangladesh and Indonesia, suffered the biggest mortality in absolute terms, but in relation to population, the highest tolls were in Dominica, Vanuatu and Myanmar.
Poor small-island states and poor landlocked states, which can suffer years-long economic damage after an extreme weather event, are most in the firing line, according to the report, "Risk and Poverty in a Changing Climate."
Together, these states account for more than two-thirds of countries with "very high" economic vulnerability to such disasters.
"Disaster risk is increasing fastest in low- and low-middle income countries with rapidly growing economies," said the report.
"These countries have rapidly increasing exposure but relatively weak institutions. While they are making improvements in risk-reducing capacities, these have yet to catch up with rising exposure."
Scientists on the Nobel-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) say the impacts of global warming are already perceptible.
For this century, they predict storms that could become more violent and frequent and more floods and droughts, as weather systems are changed by the planet's warmer surface.
Presenting the report, Andrew Maskrey of the UN's International Strategy for Disaster Reduction explained why risk was not evenly spread among all countries.
Risk depends not only on the weather but how people are exposed to such events and whether governments are prepared to deal with the threat and have the means to do so, he told a press conference.
For instance, people who migrate to fast-growing cities in search of a better life can be cruelly exposed to storms and floods if their only housing is shanty huts with no drainage, said Maskrey.
"Climate change is going to magnify risk but it's also going to magnify risk because of increasing hazard and decreasing resilience," he said.
He gave the example of Japan and the Philippines. Japan has 22.5 million people who are exposed to cyclones each year while the Philippines has 16 million. But the annual cyclone death toll in the Philippines is 17 times that of Japan.
Maskrey said 97 percent of losses related to disasters were weather-related, and only three percent were caused by earthquakes, tsunamis or volcanic eruptions.
Massive storms may grab the world headlines, but a worrying trend is the rise in disasters of a lesser magnitude that may hit only at regional level, he added.
"There has been a doubling in climate-related reports at local level since the 1980s, and more importantly, a quintupling in the housing damage associated with these frequent, low intensity loss reports," he said.
"This is the kind of under-the-radar-screen picture you don't pick up just by looking at Hurricane Katrina, Cyclone Nagis, and occasional large-scale events. This is really what is happening on the ground."
Climate change worsens disaster risks for poor: U.N.
Alister Doyle, Reuters 11 Jun 09;
BONN, Germany (Reuters) - Climate change will aggravate natural disasters and people in developing nations such as Dominica, Vanuatu, Myanmar and Guatemala are most at risk, a U.N.-backed study showed Thursday.
It urged governments to invest hundreds of billions of dollars to curb mounting impacts of hazards such as cyclones, floods, droughts, landslides, earthquakes and tsunamis.
"Risk is ... felt most acutely by people living in poor rural areas and slums," U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon wrote in the report, issued on the sidelines of June 1-12 U.N. climate talks in Bonn working on a new treaty to combat global warming.
"Climate change will magnify the uneven distribution of risk, skewing disaster impacts even further toward poor communities in developing countries," the Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction said.
Andrew Maskrey, lead author of the report, said that developing countries with big populations -- led by China, India, Bangladesh and Indonesia -- suffered the most fatalities from natural disasters.
"But you also have to look at it in relative terms -- the proportion of the population at risk," he told a news conference. By that yardstick, those at risk were "mainly small countries -- many small islands ... and small countries."
The list was topped by Dominica in the Caribbean, Vanuatu in the Pacific along with Myanmar and Guatemala.
AFRICAN
In those nations, risks of an individual dying from cyclones, floods, earthquakes or landslides were close to one in 10,000 per year. The survey did not account for risks of droughts, which would have boosted hazards for African states.
According to the report, the safest places to avoid natural disasters include Saudi Arabia, Oman, Belgium and Britain.
"Wealthier countries are not immune, as bush fires in Australia reminded us so tragically at the start of this year," Ban wrote.
"Risk is increasing globally even without climate change," the report said, largely because of a rising global population with people living in vulnerable areas such as flood plains.
The number of people living in squatter settlement -- most exposed to risks such as storms or floods -- was 1 billion and rising by 25 million a year.
Illustrating risks in developing nations, Maskrey said 17 times as many people died in the Philippines from cyclones than in Japan, even though the number of people living in vulnerable areas was similar.
And he said governments should take more account of disaster planning.
Converting mangroves into shrimp farms could make coasts more vulnerable to storm surges, he said. Draining wetlands to build houses curbs the ability of soils to regulate floods. Deforestation loosened soil and added to risks of landslides.
Needed investments to disaster-proof economies totaled hundreds of billions of dollars, he told Reuters.
"Often poor countries say 'we can't afford disaster risk reduction'," he said. His advice was "rather than build 100 schools which will fall down in the next cyclone or earthquake, build 80 to disaster risk standards."
