The United Nations announced Monday that climate change has greatly doubled natural disasters since the year 2000, which in turn claimed the lives of 1.2 million people over the past two decades.
The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction said in a report that from 2000 to 2019 there were 7348 natural disasters that claimed 1.23 million lives and cost $ 2.97 trillion - twice as much as those recorded in the past 20 years.
"Covid-19 has helped educate governments and the general public about the dangers that beset us. They can see that if Covid-19 is so terrible, climate fluctuations can be worse," said Mamie Mizutori, Secretary-General of the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction.
And she stressed, "We will exacerbate the catastrophic climate conditions in the absence of an environmentally friendly plan."
The report, which does not address the risks of spreading epidemics such as the Coronavirus, shows that the exacerbation of natural disasters is especially linked to the increase in climate disasters, which rose from 3656 (1980-1999) to 6681 (2000-2019).
The cost of natural disasters is estimated at at least 3 billion dollars since the year 2000, but the real figure is much higher because many countries, especially in Africa and Asia, do not provide information on the economic effects.
Heavy rains and storms were the most common disasters in the past two decades.
For the next decade, the United Nations considers the worst problem to be heat waves.
In the world, the number of victims increases, from 1.19 million deaths during the period 1980-1999 to reach 1.23 million during the period 2000-2019, while the number of people affected by natural disasters increased from 3.25 billion to 4 billion).
