There is nothing like humor to try to cope with misfortunes. That is why many jokes have been made about the series of catastrophic misfortunes that have caused 2020, 2021 and 2022. A pandemic, hurricanes, volcanoes, tsunamis, fires… Practically not one of the typical examples of catastrophes and natural disasters has been lacking. We might think that as we are going through some bad years we give more importance to everything, but that it really is not a time that is so different from previous ones. However, according to a report just released by the United Nations, yes, there have been many catastrophes in recent years. Also, to no one’s surprise, most are fault of the human being.
Precisely for this reason, if we do not change our way of acting, the situation will be getting worse. There is a lot of talk about pollution, climate change or global warming and sometimes we tend to see the catastrophes that it entails as something distant, but they are already here and they still have many more blows to hit us.
Logically, there are catastrophes that cannot be avoided and that do not have much to do with human activity. This is, for example, the case of earthquakes. Therefore, there have always been disasters. However, if we add to those that would happen normally those that we have triggered, the figures are devastating. According to the report, between 1970 and 2000 there was an average between 90 and 100 catastrophes per year. However, between 2001 and 2020 that annual average has risen up to 350-500. And that 2021 and 2022 have not been taken into account.
What catastrophes are contemplated in the report?
When talking about catastrophes, we can refer to everything from a great flood to a war. However, not everything has been taken into account in the preparation of this report.
Specifically, the United Nations has considered as catastrophes those disasters of biological, geophysical and climatic. This includes from pandemics and plagues to hurricanes, through earthquakes, volcanoes and tsunamis. Only those requiring national or international aidso that, for example, small local floods were not considered.
Some of these catastrophes are directly related to human activity. For example, him global warmingderived, among other causes, from the emission of greenhouse gases, can trigger more extreme weather events. It is also behind the drastic increase in the number of forest fires.
However, others are related to human activity in a different way. rather indirect. For example, these catastrophes are considered more serious when they involve human casualties or significant material losses, and this happens more and more frequently, because there are more inhabited danger zones. Both for this reason and because of the extreme level to which some disasters have reached, the report indicates that there have been more deaths from catastrophes in the last five years than in the previous five years.
What can we do?
We are already seeing the effects of this increase in the number of catastrophes, but it has only just begun. According to the United Nations, if adequate measures are not taken in 2030 the situation could be much more serious. For example, disasters related to very high temperatures, such as heat waves or fires, could triple compared to 2001. For all this, the authors of the report propose a call to action by the relevant authorities through various measures .
First of all, we should “measure what we value”. That is, it is necessary to carry out actions such as rework financial systems to take into account the real costs of risk and adapt national tax planning and financing to account for risk and uncertainty.
On the other hand, it is advisable to “design systems to take into account how human minds make decisions about risk”. This includes recognizing that people have different perceptions and biases about risk that can influence the actions that are taken. And also recognize that risk analytics is a good tool, but not a panacea. It is something that we have learned with the COVID-19 pandemic, since the models that were made on the possible evolution of the disease were very uneven.
Finally, it is necessary to “reconfigure governance and financial systems”, through measures how to assess risk from different disciplinesintensify participation, transparency and citizen dialogue in risk decision-making and improve multi-scale risk management.
All this is aimed at analyzing the risks of possible catastrophes and taking action before it is too late. But, of course, they are measures that should join those we already know to prevent climate change and global warming from continuing to creep in. Because if that happens, no matter how much we anticipate the risks, the situation will continue to be increasingly serious and that trilogy of 2020, 2021 and 2022 could become a saga that, without a doubt, no one will want to live.