More Frequent Disasters Show Urgency of Climate Deal at COP21

A vendor and girls on a bicycle go through a flash flood in Manila. Photo by Froi Rivera for ADB’s #Click4Climate contest.
A vendor and girls on a bicycle go through a flash flood in Manila. Photo by Froi Rivera for ADB’s #Click4Climate contest.

By Vinod Thomas

The spike in climate-related disasters is linked not only to people’s increased exposure and vulnerability, but also to changes in temperature and rainfall from rising greenhouse gases.

More frequent floods, storms, heat waves, and droughts are connected to greater extremes in temperatures and rainfall, according to Global Increase in Climate-Related Disasters, a new study. In a global analysis spanning the last four decades, the study shows that the rise in climate-related disasters is linked not only to people’s increased exposure and vulnerability, but also to changes in temperature and rainfall resulting from rising greenhouse gases.

This finding is timely given the recent warnings by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and other climate monitors that global temperature is already halfway to the “two degree warming” threshold for limiting catastrophic climatic impacts. These findings add fresh urgency to reaching strong agreements to cut emissions at the United Nations climate change meetings in Paris in December.

Three implications are inherent in these findings:

  1. Climate impacts are not just concerns for the distant future, but are already being felt.
  2. Heavy damages from climate-related disasters are being incurred by all countries, rich and poor, although the death toll has been especially high among the poor who are more likely to live in harm’s way, such as in flood-prone areas.
  3. It is a mistake to think that climate action—such as switching from dirty fossil fuels to cleaner renewable sources—will hold back economic growth.

Policymakers and economic advisors have long held the view that climate action is a drain on economic growth. But the reality is the opposite: the vast damage from climate-related disasters is an increasing obstacle to economic growth and wellbeing.

The frequency of intense climate-related disasters over the past four decades is associated with population exposure, measured by population density and with people’s vulnerability to these events, measured by their income levels. It also confirms the importance of climatic changes in making hazards more extreme: deviations in precipitation are positively linked to disasters from floods and storms.

Global frequency of natural disasters by type (1970-2014). Source: Author’s data based on data from the Emergency Events Database.

Global frequency of natural disasters by type (1970-2014). Source: Author’s data based on data from the Emergency Events Database.

The evidence is telling us that hazards of nature are increasingly turning into disasters because of human action.  Disasters are exacerbated by climatic impacts at the local level as well as by climate change globally.

Disaster risk estimates in the study illustrate some potentially big impacts. For a country facing the average of nearly one climate-related disaster a year, if CO2 concentrations continue to rise by the current annual rate of 2 parts per million (or by 0.5%) from the already high 400 parts per million, that would see a doubling of the frequency of floods and storms in 17 years. The three countries the study reviewed at high risk of climate-related disasters, Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand, by one definition, have on average seven of these episodes a year. Any further increases in CO2 would hit these countries hard, as would be the case for other disaster-prone countries such as Bangladesh, Costa Rica and Mauritius. 

Scientific evidence has already established the association between greenhouse gas emissions and changes in climatic conditions. The findings in this study go further by adding a connection between climate change and the frequency of intense natural disasters—after taking into account the contribution of density of population and people’s income.

The implication is that a big part of the actions for disaster risk reduction will have to be preventive in nature, in addition to those that are reactive, such as relief and rebuilding efforts. Prevention in turn will need to be in good measure to climate mitigation and climate adaptation.

The first half of this decade featured deadly climate-related disasters, among them the great floods in Thailand in 2011, Hurricane Sandy in the United States in 2012, and Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines in 2013.  The year 2014 was the earth’s warmest in 134 years of recorded history, and 2015 could well turn out to be even hotter. While scientists hesitate to link any one of these occurrence to climate change, the association is compelling.

In the run-up to the Paris climate change meetings, a great deal of attention is focused on how much countries must do to stave off the worst impacts of climate change. The relationship between climate change and the frequency of intense natural disasters provides an immediate and tangible reason why actions by countries and the global community must be urgent and decisive.