The world is seeing an unprecedented rise in disaster numbers over shorter time spans, the UN said in a new report, adding that human activity is making matters worse.
Published Tuesday by the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), the report found that climate change impacts and poor risk management converged to drive up recorded yearly disasters to around 350 to 500 in the last two decades, five times higher than numbers from fifty years ago.
Those events — ranging from fires and floods to pandemics and chemical accidents — could increase to 560 per year by 2030 or about 1.5 per day, the report said, potentially putting millions of lives at risk.
Climate change, which causes more extreme weather events, is a major cause of the increase, the UN said.
Governments have also not done enough to improve risk management of disasters, leaving humanity largely unprepared for what’s to come, according to the report.
“The world needs to do more to incorporate disaster risk in how we live, build and invest,” said Amina J. Mohammed, UN Deputy Secretary-General, adding that current pathways are “setting…
