Climate change causes two million deaths in 50 years — UN

A report by the United Nations reveals that extreme weather conditions have caused the deaths of two million people and $4.3 trillion in economic damage over the past half a century.

According to the new figures published on Monday from the UN’s World Meteorological Organisation, 11,778 weather-related disasters have occurred from 1970 to 2021, and they have surged over that period.

More than 90 percent of deaths reported worldwide due to these disasters took place in developing countries.

“The most vulnerable communities, unfortunately, bear the brunt of weather, climate and water-related hazards,” WMO chief Petteri Taalas said in a statement.

Cyclone Moncha, which wreaked havoc in Myanmar and Bangladesh last week, exemplified this reality, Taalas said.

The severe storm “caused widespread devastation, impacting the poorest of the poor”, he said.

But the WMO mentioned that improved early warning systems and coordinated disaster management had significantly reduced human casualties.

Taalas pointed out that during disasters similar to Mocha in the past, “both Myanmar and Bangladesh suffered death tolls of tens and even hundreds of thousands of people.” Myanmar’s military government has put the death toll from the latest cyclone at 145, but there are fears the number is higher.

In a 2021 report covering disaster-linked deaths and losses from 1970 to 2019, the agency pointed out that at the beginning of the period, the world saw more than 50,000 such deaths each year. By the 2010s, the disaster death toll had dropped to below 20,000 annually.