terça-feira, 8 de dezembro de 2009

Bangladesh tops the Global Climate Risk Index

No developed country is on the top 20 list of countries worst affected by extreme weather events.

Rie Jerichow

600,000 people died as a direct consequence from more than 11,000 extreme weather events from 1990 to 2008, the 2010 Global Climate Risk Index shows.

The report from the climate and development organization Germanwatch was released on Tuesday at the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen, Denmark.

According to the index, Bangladesh is the country most severely affected with natural disasters claiming 8,241 lives and damaging property worth 2.18 billion US dollars a year on average.

Myanmar, Honduras, Vietnam, Nicaragua, Haiti, India, Dominican Republic, Philippines and China are other countries in the top ten of the 2010 index, based on data made available by the world's largest reinsurer, Munich Re.

On the top 20 list of affected countries, there are only four developed countries: Italy, Portugal, Spain and the United States.

"It's really hard to make a climate risk index. Only the number of people killed in natural calamities and losses of properties were counted to make this report... But millions of people, who survived extreme weather events and who are suffering across the globe, were not taken into the account," says Dr Saleemul Haq, chief of the climate change cell of the International Institute of Environment and Development, according to The Daily Star.

He added that some African nations would have been on the list, if the surviving people had been counted.

Fonte: Site Cop 15

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