The Anatomy of A Silent Crisis The Anatomy of A Silent Crisis

Notes on report methodology
Resulting projections of “seriously affected” and “deaths“ used in Human Impact Report
Year Global
attribution
2010 40 percent
of weatherrelated
disasters
2030 50 percent
of weatherrelated
disasters
Validation and context
Number of
people affected
87 million
(40 percent of
219 million people
affected on
average between
2000 and 2008
by droughts,
temperature
extremes, floods,
storms, wildfires)
351 million
(50 percent of
702 million people
affected if we
assume a 320
percent increase
from today as in
the latest Feinstein
Center Report)
Number of
deaths
14,500
(40 percent of
36,000 deaths
on average
between 2000
and 2008 due
to droughts,
temperature
extremes,
floods, storms,
wildfire)
29,000
(50 percent of
58,000)
Sources Assumptions
• Munich Re
• Baines and
others for
comparison
• Munich Re
• Baines for
comparison
• Feinstein
Center
No climate change before 1980
All non-climate change related
factors are equally reflected in
the geophysical trend
The climate change attribution
to the number of events can
be used as a proxy for the
attribution of climate change in
terms of number of affected/
deaths/ economic losses
See above
Deaths increase only half as
fast as the number of people
affected
The attribution estimates compare well to the sectoral and regional estimates that have been
published. For instance, Baines 2009 estimates that 37 percent of drought is due to climate
change, 251 and Dorland et al., 252 Leckebusch et al., 2007, 253 Hanson et al., 2004 254 come up with
similar proportions for regional studies.
The assumption that the frequency of events translates into a proportional number of people
affected and number of deaths may be viewed as conservative:
• The overall proportion of people affected by weather-related disasters is significantly greater than
for earthquakes. The intensity of floods and storms may also increase due to climate change.
• A number of factors may worsen consequences of natural disasters independent of climate change.
Some of these factors should affect the outcome of weather disasters but not geophysical disasters.
Examples include: more people living in coastal regions exposed to hurricanes and cyclones; and
more people live in conditions of poverty and among dense populations in communities with low
resilience to the effects of disasters.
87