Climate Change Is Key Driver Of Disasters
Until recently it has been well understood that the main drivers of weather-related disasters were increased exposure and vulnerability due to poverty, the breakneck pace of urbanization in low and middle income countries, population growth, the destruction of protective eco-systems and low institutional capacity to manage disaster risk.
It is generally accepted that climate change is in the mix, but it is often difficult to pinpoint the role it plays in specific disaster events. Over the last 20 years, some 90 percent of major recorded disaster events have been weather-related.
The Emergency Events Database maintained by the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters, based at the University of Louvain, Belgium, recorded 6,457 weather-related disasters between 1995 and 2015. There has been a doubling of such events yearly over the last decade.
CIFOR