More frequent floods, storms, heat waves and droughts are connected to greater extremes in temperatures and rainfall, according to the latest report released by the Manila-based Asian Development Bank (ADB).
The report titled, Global Increase in Climate-Related Disasters, was released just ahead of the United Nations climate-change meetings in Paris in December.
The ADB said the findings of the study add “fresh urgency” to cutting emissions.
One of the implications of the study’s findings, the ADB said, is that it is a mistake to think that climate action—such as switching from dirty fossil fuels to cleaner renewable sources—will hold back economic growth.
“Policy-makers and economic advisors have long held the view that climate action is a drain on economic growth,” said Vinod Thomas, coauthor of the study and director general of the ADB’s Independent Evaluation.
“But the reality is opposite: the vast damage from climate-related disasters is an increasing obstacle to economic growth and well-being,” Thomas added.
The study found that the frequency of intense climate-related disasters over the past four decades is associated with population exposure, measured by population density and with people’s vulnerability to these events, measured by their income levels. It also confirmed the importance of climatic changes in making hazards more extreme: deviations in precipitation are positively linked to disasters from floods and storms.
“The evidence is telling us that hazards of nature are increasingly turning into disasters because of human action,” said Ramon Lopez, coauthor of the study and professor of economics at the University of Chile.
“We found that disasters are exacerbated by climatic impacts at the local level, as well as by climate change globally,” Lopez added.
Disaster risk estimates in the study illustrate some potentially big impacts. The ADB said if carbon-dioxide concentrations continue to rise by the current annual rate of 2 parts per million (ppm) or by 0.5 percent from 400 ppm, the frequency of floods and storms could double in 17 years.
The three countries the study reviewed at high risk of climate-related disasters—Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand—have on average seven of floods and storms a year.
“Any further increases in carbon dioxide would hit these countries hard, as would be the case for other disaster-prone countries such as Bangladesh, Costa Rica and Mauritius,” the ADB said.
The ADB study also took into account the contribution of population density and people’s income in exacerbating greenhouse-gas emissions.
“The implication is that a big part of the actions for disaster risk reduction will have to be preventive in nature, in addition to those that are reactive, such as relief and rebuilding efforts,” Lopez said. “Prevention, in turn, will need to be in good measure to climate mitigation and climate adaptation.”
The first half of this decade featured deadly climate-related disasters, among them the great floods in Thailand in 2011, Hurricane Sandy in the United States in 2012, and Supertyphoon Yolanda (international code name Haiyan) in the Philippines in 2013.