In the past, weather-related disasters were primarily due to factors like poverty, rapid urban growth in developing countries, increasing population, destruction of ecosystems, and limited capacity to handle disaster risk.
Climate change is often considered a part of the problem, but its specific role in disaster events is not always clear. Statistics show that in the past two decades, 90% of major disasters recorded were due to weather.
The Emergency Events Database, managed by the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters in Belgium, reported 6,454 weather-related disasters from 1996 to 2016. The number of such events has doubled annually over the past ten years.
Recent research from The Lancet suggests that climate change might significantly impact Europe. It predicts that by 2100, weather-related disasters could affect around two-thirds of Europeans each year. This could expose up to 351 million people annually, compared to the current 25 million per year from 1981 to 2010. This study analyses potential changes in weather and demographics, focusing on natural hazards. These include heat and cold waves, wildfires, droughts, floods, and windstorms under a scenario with no change in current greenhouse gas emissions.
The study found that by 2100, the death rate could increase 50 times, leading to about 3,000 deaths per year. In Southern Europe, already affected by the so-called Lucifer heat wave and associated wildfires, weather extremes could become the primary environmental risk factor. According to The Lancet, over 90% of human risk is due to global warming. It’s mainly because of an increase in heatwave frequency, which could lead to about 2,700 heat-related deaths per year compared to 151,500 by 2100.
These findings are staggering and their implications are severe for the entire globe, especially for developing countries with limited resources for climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction. These countries often lack basic early warning systems for weather risks, which is a global goal supported by organizations like the World Meteorological Organization, World Bank, and the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR).
The Lancet study highlights the significant challenge many countries face, especially those where extreme weather events pose a greater threat than in Europe. The Sendai Framework, which sets targets for reducing disaster mortality, affected people, economic losses, and infrastructure damage by 2030, now seems more challenging. This research emphasizes the urgent need for increasing mitigation, climate adaptation, and risk reduction efforts to minimize disaster losses and health impacts.
As the authors note, understanding disaster risk is a key action point in the Sendai Framework. Promoting data collection, analysis, management, and dissemination is critical to developing this understanding at both national and local levels.
As we approach the 2020 deadline of the Sendai Framework for increasing the number of countries with disaster risk reduction strategies, we need a better understanding of climate change and population growth’s impacts on disaster risk management. This research provides valuable insights into disaster risk in Europe, and it can guide further studies on the effects of climate change in other regions likely to face worsening weather-related disasters.