UN report advises planning to limit losses from climate disasters

Posted by Craig Clarke 
on Apr 4, 2012
 
A future on Earth of more extreme weather and rising seas will require better planning for natural disasters to save lives and limit deepening economic losses, the United Nations said on March 28 in a major report on the effects of climate change.
The U.N. climate panel said all nations will be vulnerable to the expected increase in heat waves, more intense rains and floods and a probable rise in the intensity of droughts.
Aimed largely at policymakers, the report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change makes clear nations need to act now, because increasingly extreme weather is already a trend.
The need for action has become more acute as a growing human population puts more people and more assets in the path of disaster, raising economic risk, the report said. The report's title made the point: Managing the risks of extreme events and disasters to advance climate change adaptation.
Asia was most vulnerable to potential disasters, with East Asia and the Pacific facing the highest adaptation costs.
 
 
"Few countries appear to have adopted a comprehensive approach - for example, by addressing projected changes in exposure, vulnerability, and extremes," the report said. Building this into national development planning is crucial.
Global reinsurer Munich Re says that since 1980, weather-related disasters worldwide have more than tripled.   Lindene Patton, chief climate product officer for Zurich Financial Services, was quoted by Reuters as saying the report was particularly useful for insurers who rely on its scientific assessments "to assist our customers to live and work successfully in the natural world."
The report looks for "low regrets" strategies that not only protect those in the path of natural disasters but also boost sustainable development. These include early warning systems, better drainage, preserving ecosystems such as mangroves, forests and water catchments, plus better building standards and overhauling health systems.
Spreading financial risk of disasters was another tool to limit the already-strained cash reserves of many poorer nations.
Nations need to do a better job in assessing people and places vulnerable to climate disasters, such as mega cities expanding further into flood plains or along low-lying coasts. Key was treating the causes, not the symptoms of vulnerability.
Most (95%) deaths from natural disasters between 1970 and 2008 occurred in developing countries.
Losses from disasters were also substantially higher for developing nations, with middle-income countries suffering losses of 1 percent of GDP between 2001 and 2006, compared with 0.1 percent for high-income countries.
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