“Early warnings save lives”: Disaster deaths decline but damage rises on hotter planet
MD TAHMID ZAMI and MEGAN ROWLING, of Thomson Reuters Foundation, report that early warning systems are saving lives but economic losses are increasing as climate change fuels more extreme weather events…
Human activity is leading to more disasters – UN report
London, UKReuters Human activity is contributing to an increasing number of disasters, with 350 and 500 medium-sized or large disasters a year occurring globally in the past two decades and more frequent events expected, according to a UN report. The number of disasters – many of them weather-related such as fires and floods, but also […]
Poor nations may see higher coronavirus deaths, warns UN official
Barcelona, SpainThomson Reuters Foundation Governments and health systems in wealthy nations are struggling to cope with the coronavirus pandemic, suggesting the poorest countries may be hit far harder if the virus gains a foothold there, a top UN official warned. Mami Mizutori, head of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, said even in developed […]
At disaster forum, storm-hit Mozambique says will seek help to build back better
Geneva, SwitzerlandThomson Reuters Foundation Mozambique, which was battered by two cyclones in March and April, will hold an international conference in two weeks’ time to drum up funding to help it build back stronger, its vice-minister for state administration said Friday. “What we have learned from these cyclones [is] we need to build new infrastructure […]
DISASTER READINESS: STAY OR GO? AS WEATHER GETS WILDER, NATIONS URGED TO PREPARE FOR DISPLACEMENT
MEGAN ROWLING reports for Thomson Reuters Foundation…
60 million people affected by “extreme weather” in 2018, says UN
Extreme weather affected almost 60 million people in 2018, according to the UN, with at least 10,000 lives lost to disasters in the past year. Figures cited by the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction show that floods killed some 2,859 people in 2018 and affected more than 35 million people, including more than 23 […]
Climate disasters cause global economic losses to soar, says UN
Thomson Reuters Foundation Economic losses caused by climate-related disasters have soared by about two and a half times in the last 20 years, the United Nations said on Wednesday. From 1998 to 2017, direct losses from all disasters totalled $US2.9 trillion, of which 77 per cent was due to extreme weather that is intensifying as […]