BJORN LOMBORG: Unfounded claims show UN is way off the mark on weather disasters

Waves crash against the New Canal Lighthouse on Lake Pontchartrain as the effects of Hurricane Ida begin to be felt in New Orleans, Louisiana, US, in this August 29 2021 file photo. Picture: USA TODAY NETWORK via REUTERS/MICHAEL DEMOCKER

The problem is that the documentation of all types of disasters in the 1970s was far patchier than it is today, when anyone with a cellphone can immediately share news of a storm or flood from halfway around the world. That’s why the disaster database’s own experts explicitlyamateurs not to conclude that an increase in registered disasters equates to more disasters in reality. Reaching such a conclusion “would be incorrect” because the increase really just shows improvements in recording.

So how do we robustly measure whether weather disasters have really become worse? The best approach is not to count the catastrophes, but to look instead at deaths. Major losses of life have been registered pretty consistently over the past century. Remember, Covid-19 killed more people just in 2020 than all the world’s other catastrophes in the past half century. Lumping these in with deaths from hurricanes and floods inappropriately seems designed to create headlines rather than understanding, especially when the agency is using the findings to argue for an acceleration of climate action.

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