Humanity on 'spiral of self-destruction' as climate disasters rise, UN warns

KUALA LUMPUR－The world is set to face 1.5 disasters a day－560 a year－by 2030, as humans put themselves on a "spiral of self-destruction" by heating up the climate and ignoring risk, pushing millions more people into poverty, warned the United Nations on Tuesday.

In the past two decades, between 350 and 500 medium-sized to major disasters were recorded annually, but governments are "fundamentally" underestimating their true impact on lives and livelihoods, according to a biennial UN report on disasters.

"Raising the alarm by speaking the truth is not only necessary but crucial," said Mami Mizutori, head of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, or UNDRR, which published the Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction 2022.

"The science is clear. It is less costly to take action before a disaster devastates than to wait until destruction is done and respond after it has happened," she said.

The UN-backed Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned this year that climate change impacts, from heat to drought and flooding, are set to become more frequent and intense, damaging nature, people and the places they live.

But measures to slash planet-heating emissions and adapt to global warming are both lagging.

The UNDRR report said increasingly frequent and intense disasters have killed or affected more people in the last five years than in the previous five-year period, and could push an additional 100 million people into poverty by 2030.

"The world needs to do more to incorporate disaster risk in how we live, build and invest, which is setting humanity on a spiral of self-destruction," said Deputy UN Secretary-General Amina J. Mohammed in a statement.

Disasters have cost an average of about $170 billion each year in the last decade, the report said, with developing nations and their poorest people suffering disproportionately.

Those countries already lose an average of 1 percent of their GDP a year to disasters－ten times more than high-income countries. Asia-Pacific nations are the worst hit, with a 1.6 percent annual GDP dent.

To help the most vulnerable groups, politicians and decision-makers must commit to more ambitious climate policies and accelerate the shift to green energy, said Mary Joy Gonzales, a project manager at aid agency CARE Philippines.

"The most at-risk (people) to extreme climate events and natural hazards are those living in urban poor communities, marginalized rural areas and isolated locations," she added.

Maarten van Aalst, director of the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre, said countries must stop "managing each crisis as a separate surprise", and instead invest in building systems that can help people cope with climate threats.

"Sadly, those who are worst affected have the least resources to address the increasing hazards," he said. "To really reduce risk, we must also reduce inequalities."

Agencies via Xinhua