Climate change is causing a disaster every week
Environment — di Andrea Barolini
A new warning from the United Nations: climate change is a reality, as demonstrated by the multiplication of catastrophes. Adaptation is needed.
Climate change is causing a disaster every week
A new warning from the United Nations: climate change is a reality, as demonstrated by the multiplication of catastrophes. Adaptation is needed.
Climate change is part of our daily lives. This is confirmed by the number of catastrophes now recorded across the world: one every week. The figure was released by a senior United Nations official, Mami Mizutori, special representative of Secretary-General António Guterres for disaster risk reduction related to natural disasters.
"Climate change is part of our present"
The official – as reported by The Guardian – stressed that it is not necessary to focus only on large-scale events. There is in fact a multitude of "minor" episodes in terms of duration and extent. Yet they nonetheless sow death, cause migration and suffering among populations. "And – Mizutori clarifies – we are not talking about a distant future, but about our present."
According to the British newspaper, estimates of the economic costs linked to climate change amount to the astronomical figure of 520 billion dollars a year. Whereas making coasts, cities and infrastructure around the world safer, by adapting to the new conditions, would require "just 3 per cent of that sum". "It's not a huge amount of money – the United Nations official observed –. The problem, however, is that investors are not doing enough. Resilience must become something people are willing to pay for."
Read also: 12 years to act or the climate will go haywire
According to the United Nations, what will be needed is commitment not only to policies of mitigation of climate change (that is, reducing greenhouse gas emissions in order to limit the rise in average global temperature over the coming decades). Investment in adaptation to climate change will also be crucial. To save human lives, and productive and economic systems.
One climate crisis disaster happening every week! This means we need to escalate our efforts for adaptation and resilience. bit.do/eZpNV
From Australia to Africa, extreme weather events multiply
The intensification of extreme weather events and the resulting natural disasters is, moreover, plain to see. In Italy as in the rest of the world. And that is just within 2019. In the first months of the year, for example, Australia began with an exceptional heatwave, with temperatures above 40 degrees for 22 consecutive days in the north-western regions of the country. Making it the hottest January on record.
A few weeks later, the same Australia recorded rainfall of exceptional magnitude, which struck a large portion of its territory, causing floods described as "unprecedented" by local authorities: "Something like this happens once every century," they specified. The worst-affected state was Queensland: in Townsville, the region's third most populous city, crocodiles were even spotted in the streets.
Among the disasters of the first half of 2019, one can also cite Hurricane Idai, which last March sowed death and destruction in Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe. Followed a month later by Cyclone Kenneth, considered "the most powerful ever" in the history of Mozambique.
Iran and India lashed by torrential rains. Record heat in Europe
Also in March, Iran was lashed by days and days of torrential rain, which had already caused the deaths of dozens of people and widespread flooding. In May, Cyclone Fani struck the Bay of Bengal, in India. It was the strongest in the past 43 years: only three times in the last century and a half had a cyclone with winds of over 200 kilometres per hour been recorded in the area.
Also in India, June saw the most powerful heatwave in its history. On 10 June the capital New Delhi recorded 48 degrees: such a high temperature had never been recorded at that time of year. In the cities of Churu, Allahabad and Banda too, temperatures reached record levels, with peaks above 50 degrees in the first.
Read also: Climate, 2018 was the hottest year in Italy since 1800
More recently, Europe too was struck by an impressive heatwave. In France, an absolute heat record was even set: never in the history of the European nation had the thermometer touched 45.9 degrees Celsius (it happened on 28 June in the small town of Gallargues-le-Montueux).
On those same days, in Japan, the authorities ordered the evacuation of one million people due to torrential rainfall in the prefectures of Kagoshima and Miyazaki. And the list could go on.