Oman, Poland and Portugal were among the top 10 most climate-vulnerable nations in 2010
DURBAN, South Africa (AlertNet) - Risks from extreme weather are growing quickly in some unexpected places around the world as the planet heads towards temperature rises at least double what scientists consider safe, authors of a German climate risk index said on Tuesday.
Pakistan, Guatemala and Colombia ranked highest on the Germanwatch 2010 risk index, which looks at deaths and economic losses from extreme weather and then adjusts the figures to reflect the size of the country. All suffered extreme flooding last year, and Guatemala was hit by hurricanes as well.
But rounding out the top 10 at-risk countries were some surprises - among them Oman, Poland and Portugal, all of which suffered major floods in 2010 and ranked 6, 7 and 8 respectively. The other nations in the top 10 were Russia, Honduras, China and Tajikistan.
“New countries are showing up,” said Sven Harmeling, the author of the report, which was released at the U.N. climate talks in South Africa. “It’s an indication extreme weather is becoming more surprising and severe” in many regions, he said.
The report also assessed the most at-risk countries over the last 20 years, with Asian and Latin American nations topping the list. Bangladesh was considered the highest risk over that period, followed by Myanmar, Honduras, Nicaragua, Haiti, Vietnam, Dominican Republic, Pakistan, North Korea and the Philippines.
In the past two decades, 710,000 people died as a result of extreme weather events in the top 10 countries, and economic losses totalled $2.3 trillion, Harmeling said.
The listing noticeably excludes African nations, which Harmeling said tend to suffer creeping climate-related crises like drought, which is harder to quantify in terms of losses.
The Germanwatch report looked largely at quick-moving extreme events such as hurricanes and cyclones, flooding, mudslides, heatwaves and cold spells.
“Africa is vulnerable to climate change but not everything you can grab with figures,” Harmeling said.
The index should serve as a warning to countries that extreme weather can take lives and cause damage almost anywhere, he said - particularly as greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise and the world heads towards a hike in the average global temperature of 4 to 5 degrees Celsius, well above the 2 degree increase climate scientists believe is relatively safe.
That “would result in a large-scale experiment unprecedented in the history of mankind”, Harmeling warned.
SYSTEM 'CAN'T COPE'
Farrukh Iqbal Khan, a lead climate negotiator for Pakistan and for the G77 and China group of countries, called a recent International Energy Agency report predicting a 4 to 5 degree average temperature rise a “clarion call” for action to curb climate-changing emissions.
“Changes in the weather are occurring at a speed and pace that our system is unable to cope with,” he said, pointing to severe floods that affected 20 million Pakistanis in 2010 and 8 million this year.
To deal with its worsening flood problems, Pakistan has elevated its disaster management department to a full federal ministry, and is trying to scale up capacity in flood relief and management. But “resources are in short supply in Pakistan and in the international community”, Khan said, which may limit how much can be done.
Harmeling said Bangladesh may well drop lower in the risk rankings next year as a result of its widespread disaster preparedness efforts, including the construction of elevated concrete coastal storm shelters and the introduction of effective early warning systems.
Those measures have dramatically reduced loss of life from the cyclones and storm surges that regularly pummel Bangladesh’s low coastal deltas, he said.
Efforts to mitigate climate emissions must be combined with efforts to reduce risk from extreme events, “otherwise adaptation capacities of many countries will be overwhelmed”, Harmeling warned.
Already the average world temperature has risen by 0.4 degrees Celsius above its level from 1961 to 1990, according to R.D.J. Lengoasa, deputy secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organization.
“Urgent action is needed to avert the worst climate-change scenarios in the next decades,” he urged during a press conference at the climate talks. “Climate change is real and we are already observing its manifestations in weather and climate patterns around the world.”
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
