UN seeks to put a number on the impact of global disasters

A new initiative has been launched by the UN to better understand and quantify the impact of extreme weather events around the world.

The UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction has started what it calls a “historic effort” to collect a comprehensive set of data on losses caused by natural disasters.

Mami Mizutori, who heads the UN’s work in this area said that “it is impossible to prevent disasters and to manage risk if a country is not measuring its disaster losses, particularly at the local level, for both small-scale and large-scale events. Such losses are a great setback for efforts to eradicate poverty.”

As a result of these challenges, the office has launched an online tool called the Sendai Framework Monitor, named after the global agreement to tackle the impacts of global disasters by 2030.  

The new tool will capture data on five targets related to the Sendai Framework, and agreed by UN member states. These include reducing: mortality from disasters, the number impacted, economic losses, and the damage to critical infrastructure. It will also record the number of countries with strategies to cope with disaster risks.

144 countries have already agreed to send the UN their latest data on the issue.

"Improving how we manage risk is vital and this requires a deeper understanding of where these losses are occurring and not just for major internationally recorded events. The silent, small-recurring events such as floods and droughts can take a huge toll on communities which lack essential health services and other coping capacities”, Ms. Mizutori added.

The global cost of natural disasters is getting higher as the number of extreme weather events increases due to climate change. In 2017, the United States experienced 16 weather and climate disasters which caused a record $300 billion of damage.

The UN also estimates that climate change is linked to 90 percent of extreme weather events each year, which lead to over 25 million people being pushed into poverty.