– More reasons than climate change –
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called Tuesday’s summit to mobilize world leaders before the 2015 conference in Paris that is meant to draft a new global agreement on climate change.
The Norwegian study pointed to findings of a UN-led scientific panel, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which has said that human activity is contributing to the greater frequency and intensity of disasters around the planet.
But the report said that a sharp rise in urbanization, and bad planning, were also factors in explaining the steep rise in disaster displacement.
“We are not saying here that it’s climate change that has explained the increase. It’s just as much, or more, population growth and urbanization, bad planning and more exposure to the elements,” Egeland said.
More than 80 percent of the people displaced by natural disasters last year were in Asia, the report found. The Philippines suffered the two most disruptive disasters last year, with typhoons Haiyan – also known as Yolanda – and Trami together displacing 5.8 million people.
Relative to population size, eight of the 20 most disruptive natural disasters were in sub-Saharan Africa. The study warned of growing risks to Africa as the continent experiences higher population growth than other regions.
Wealthy nations were not immune, with a typhoon in Japan’s Chubu region, tornadoes in the US state of Oklahoma and floods in the Canadian province of Alberta together displacing nearly 600,000 people.
The study also warned of growing risks of natural disasters hitting nations that are also in conflict. It pointed to the 2010 floods that swamped Pakistan as an example of a disaster hitting a fragile state.
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