Annual economic losses from natural disasters have almost quadrupled in the past three decades, the World Bank said in a report that recommends investments ranging from early-warning systems to safer roads and buildings.
The average reported losses rose from around $50 billion a year in the 1980s to almost $200 billion a year in the past decade, totaling $3.8 trillion from 1980 to 2012, according to the report, which used data by Munich Re, the world’s largest reinsurer. Three-quarters of the total was due to extreme weather, it said.
The report was released 10 days after one of the deadliest typhoons in Philippines history killed more than 3,600 and displaced hundreds of thousands of people. The report by the Washington-based bank urges a bigger role for “disaster resilience” planning in economic development.
Typhoon Haiyan “brought into sharp focus how climate change is intensifying the severity of extreme weather events, which hurts the poor the most,” World Bank President Jim Yong Kimsaid in an e-mailed statement. “The world can no longer afford to put off action to slow greenhouse emissions, and help countries prepare for a world of greater climate and disaster risks.”
United Nations climate talks start their second week in Warsaw today. Developing nations led by the 44-member Alliance of Small Island States are seeking an international mechanism that would help them cope with rising sea levels and acidifying oceans, as well as compensate them for the effects of storms and droughts that scientists say will become more intense as the planet warms.
