UN risk expert warns we are heading for catastrophe over natural disasters

Last year, earthquakes, floods, heatwaves and landslides left 22,773 people dead, affected 98.6 million others, and caused $66.5bn (£47bn) of economic damage.

Yet, according to UN figures, in 2014 just 0.4% of the global aid budget of $135.2bn – roughly $540m – was spent on efforts concerning disaster risk reduction (DRR) – things like infrastructure, storm shelters and early warning systems.

Robert Glasser, the special representative of the UN secretary general for disaster risk reduction, has warned that the world’s failure to prepare for natural disasters will have “inconceivably bad” consequences as climate change fuels a huge increase in catastrophic droughts and floods and the humanitarian crises that follow.

More information here.


 




XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>