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The world should react with the same urgency to climate change as to the coronavirus crisis, the Red Cross said Tuesday, warning that global warming poses a greater threat than the 2019 coronavirus disease (Covid-19).
Even as the pandemic rages, climate change is not taking a break from wreaking havoc, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said in a new report.
In the report, on global catastrophes since the 1960s, the Geneva-based organization noted that the world has been affected by more than 100 disasters, many of them climate-related, since the World Health Organization declared the pandemic in March.
More than 50 million people have been affected, he said.
“Of course, the Covid is there, it is in front of us, it is affecting our families, our friends, our relatives,” said the secretary general of the International Federation, Jagan Chapagain, in a virtual press conference.
“It is a very, very serious crisis that the world is currently facing,” he said of the pandemic, which has already claimed more than 1.3 million lives.
But he warned that the International Federation hopes that “climate change will have a more significant impact in the medium and long term on human life and on Earth.”
“Unfortunately, there is no vaccine for climate change,” Chapagain said.
When it comes to global warming, he warned, “much more sustained action and investment will be required to truly protect human life on this Earth.”
The frequency and intensity of extreme and climate-related weather events had already increased considerably in recent decades, the International Federation said.
In 2019 alone, the world was hit by 308 natural disasters, 77 percent of them climatic or weather-related, killing some 24,400 people.
The number of climate and weather-related disasters has risen steadily since the 1960s and has risen by nearly 35 percent since the 1990s, the International Federation said.
This is a deadly development.
Weather and climate-related disasters have killed more than 410,000 people over the past decade, most of them in poorer countries, and heat waves and storms are the deadliest, according to the report.
Faced with this threat, which “literally threatens our long-term survival”, the International Federation called on the international community to act with the necessary urgency.
He estimated that around $ 50 billion would be needed annually over the next decade to help 50 developing countries adapt to the changing climate.
The International Federation emphasized that that amount was “dwarfed by the global response to the economic impact of Covid-19”, which has already exceeded $ 10 trillion.
He also regretted that much of the money invested so far in climate change prevention and mitigation does not go to developing countries most at risk.
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