The Impact of Climate Change on Natural Disasters - Reducing Disaster: Early Warning Systems for Climate Change - page 40

last 3 years have all caused more than US$ 100 billion annually in direct economic
losses, uninsured losses are not even included (UNISDR 2013a ) .
Linking monetary disaster loss to climate change can be misleading, Crompton
et al. ( 2011 ) suggest caution when linking normalized damage losses of weather-
related natural hazards, in particular tropical cyclone losses, to human-caused cli-
mate change, stating that it might be better to focus on climate data than loss data in
order to detect a climate signal. However, it should be noted that normalizing for
damages may ignore the improvement in design and protective measures that reduce
the risk of damages during a disaster in general.

2.4.2 Disaster Risk Distribution

The risk of disaster and the possible damages depend heavily on socioeconomic
factors, as well as the frequency and intensity of extreme events. The GAR as well
as the SREX report concludes that the rising risk of economic loss due to weather
events is related to the increasing number of people and economic assets exposed to
events (UNISDR 2011a ; IPCC 2012a ). Risk therefore broadly follows urban and
regional development, meaning that the economic risk increases with growing pop-
ulation and exposed assets (UNISDR 2011a ). A 2012 study released found that
around 60 % of people living in urban areas, with more than one million inhabit-
ants (in 2011), are living in regions at risk from natural hazards (UNDESA 2012 ).
In other words, approximately 1.4 billion people are living in risk exposed regions
(UNDESA 2012 ).
Disaster risk also increases where GDP and assets are not high. The SREX report
states that socioeconomic factors will impact the future distribution and increases in
weather-related losses (IPCC 2012a ). The poorest communities are generally con-
sidered most at risk, as they tend to live in risk-prone areas, such as fl oodplains and
unstable slopes. Their limited assets increase the chances that they live in poorly
built houses, are dependent on climate-related sectors for income (e.g., agriculture),
and have limited capacity to cope with the impacts of natural hazards or have inad-
equate access to relevant emergency services (UNISDR 2008 , 2009b ). As an exam-
ple, 44 % of the global population already lives near coastal areas ( UN Atlas of
Oceans ). These areas, however, are at risk of fl oods, cyclones, and rising sea levels
(UNISDR 2009b ). The IPCC SREX report showed that the amount of people at risk
to future sea-level rise is tremendous, in particular in highly populated mega-deltas
in Asia, such as the Mekong or Ganges delta (IPCC 2007b ).
Small island developing states as well as land locked developing countries are at
elevated risk due to their limited economic strength and resilience (UNISDR 2009b ).
The GAR 2011 declared drought as the hidden risk due to its complexity and many
different drivers (UNISDR 2012 ). Further complicating is the disconnected-
ness between the early warning and the adequate early action (Chatham House
2013 ). Figure 2.9 represents the multi-risk associated with tropical cyclones, fl oods,