Human actions and the climate crisis – which is also human responsibility – have contributed to the increase in catastrophes in the world, warns the UN in a new report released this Tuesday (26). For the entity, the world is in a “self-destruction spiral” and, at the same time, there is a misperception of optimism and invincibility, which underestimates the risks of disasters, that is, inadequate risk management.
Brazil is cited as one of the important areas of food production in the world and the systemic risks associated with problems in these regions – problems that have already been demonstrated recently, especially during the current Covid pandemic and droughts.
The report was published on Tuesday (26) by the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction. The document shows that between 350 and 500 medium- and high-magnitude disasters have occurred each year in recent decades, which represents an increase over previous decades.
This account includes earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanoes, weather-related disasters, as well as problems such as epidemic outbreaks. One of the issues facing today and that will be addressed in the future is that the climate crisis exacerbates disaster risks.
Also according to the document, the number of disasters could increase to 560 each year, that is, 1.5 a day, by 2030, putting the lives of millions of people at risk.
And the cost of the last decade’s catastrophes has been high: on average, about $170 billion a year.
“The world must do more to integrate the risk of catastrophe in the way we live, build and invest”, underlined the UN Deputy Secretary General, Amina Mohammed, in the presentation of the report.
The official called the international community to responsibility and said that it is necessary to take humanity out of the “spiral of self-destruction”. “We must turn our collective complacency into action. Together, we can slow the pace of preventable disasters,” she added.
The document also indicates that the scope and intensity of disasters have increased and that the number of people killed and affected by disasters has been greater in the last five years than in the previous five.
There is also an issue of inequality related to the topic. Disasters have a disproportionate impact on developing countries, which lose an average of 1% of their GDP per year because of these tragic events, compared to 0.1% to 0.3% in developed countries. The highest cost is in the Asia-Pacific region.
Since 1980, only 40% of disaster-related losses have been insured and coverage rates in developing countries are below 10% —sometimes approaching zero—, which exacerbates the long-term consequences of these disasters.
“Disasters can be avoided, but only if countries invest the time and resources necessary to understand and reduce the risks,” said Mami Mizutori, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Disaster Risk Reduction. “By deliberately ignoring risks and not integrating them into the decision-making process, the world is financing its own destruction.
Brazil
One of the citations to Brazil in the report occurs when talking about global food production chains.
According to the document, some countries and regions depend on fragile ordinations and in the world there is a high systemic risk in the governance of food production and distribution systems. As a result, droughts — in which there are signs of an increase in frequency of more than 30% from 2001 to 2030 — in large producing countries have the potential to impact prices worldwide, especially affecting poorer nations.
And Brazil has experienced, in recent years, episodes of drought with a direct impact on the prices of products and the increase in the cost of living and inflation. And not only droughts, but also other climatic disasters that affect production in the field.
Thinking of all the countries with important food productions for the world, failures happening at the same time could lead to serious repercussions across the world.
“Droughts, floods and fires simultaneously happening in important production locations such as Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Europe and the United States could lead to a global food price crisis and trigger other systemic risks,” the report says. “Considering climatic variations worldwide, there is a high probability of multiple failures in these large producers.”
At the same time that the country is cited in the midst of this concern, there is also a positive mention of forest protection – despite the significant increase in deforestation in recent years.
The report cites Brazil and Indonesia as two examples of how forest protection measures can reduce the risk of disease in humans. At the same time, it warns that deforestation, uncontrolled urban growth and poorly regulated agricultural areas generate greater probabilities of outbreaks of diseases transmitted by mosquitoes and pandemics.
