World Disasters Report 2020

Executive Summary

Tackling the humanitarian impacts of

the climate crisis together
© International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, Geneva, 2020
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Cover photo: Assam state, India, 2020. © Indian Red Cross Society
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The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies would like to express its gratitude to
the following for their support to the World Disasters Report 2020.

UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction

 Snapshot of climate- and weather-related
disasters and their impacts

In the past ten years, 83% of all disasters triggered by natural hazards were
caused by extreme weather- and climate-related events, such as floods,
storms and heatwaves.

The number of climate- and weather-related disasters has been increasing

since the 1960s, and has risen almost 35% since the 1990s.

The proportion of all disasters attributable to climate and extreme weather

events has also increased significantly during this time, from 76% of all
disasters during the 2000s to 83% in the 2010s.

These extreme weather- and climate-related disasters have killed more

than 410,000 people in the past ten years, the vast majority in low and
lower middle-income countries. Heatwaves, then storms, have been the
biggest killers.

A further 1.7 billion people around the world have been affected by climate-
and weather-related disasters during the past decade.

4 | World Disasters Report 2020

EXECUTIVE
SUMMARY

Overview
The COVID-19 pandemic has shown how vulnerable the world is to a truly global catastrophe. But another,
bigger, catastrophe has been building for many decades, and humanity is still lagging far behind in efforts to
address it, as communities and countries still need to adapt to its realities.

The impacts of global warming are already killing people and devastating lives and livelihoods every year,
and they will only get worse without immediate and determined action. The frequency and intensity of
climatological events are increasing substantially, with more category 4 and 5 storms, more heatwaves
breaking temperature records and more heavy rains, among many other extremes. Loss of natural
resources, food insecurity, direct and indirect health impacts and displacement are likewise on the rise.
Many communities are being affected by concurrent and consecutive disasters, leaving them with little time
to recover before the next shock arrives. The most at-risk people in these communities are in danger of
being left behind if their needs and capacities are not understood, and their voices not heard.

Executive summary | 5
 The massive stimulus packages that are being developed around the world in response to COVID-19 are an
opportunity to build back better – not only with a green recovery but an adaptive one, using funds to invest
in making communities safer and more resilient.

The resources we need to adapt to current and imminent climate-driven disaster risks are within reach. As
an example, it would take an estimated 50 billion US dollars (around 49 billion Swiss francs) annually to meet
the adaptation requirements set out by 50 developing countries for the coming decade. This amount is
dwarfed by the global response to the economic impact of COVID-19 which has already passed 10 trillion US
dollars (approximately 9.8 trillion Swiss francs), including a 750 billion Euro (802 billion Swiss franc) COVID-19
economic bailout scheme agreed by EU leaders in July 2020, and a 2.2 trillion US dollar (2.1 trillion Swiss
franc) COVID-19 stimulus bill adopted by the USA in March. This money should be used for the essential task
of creating jobs, whilst at the same time also facilitating a green, inclusive and resilient recovery.

It is also critical to use available resources well – headlines about millions and billions of dollars should not
distract us from ensuring that what is allocated is best spent for those people who need it most. At present,
the available funding for climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction does not seem to consistently
prioritize the countries at highest risk and with the lowest ability to adapt and cope with these risks.

While higher volumes of funding do often go to countries facing the highest levels of vulnerability to disaster
risk and climate change, this is not consistently the case. Many highly vulnerable countries are left behind,
receiving little climate change adaptation support.

The analysis presented in World Disasters Report 2020 shows that none of the 20 countries most vulnerable
to climate change (according to ND-GAIN) and to climate- and weather-related disasters (according to
INFORM) were among the 20 highest per person recipients of climate change adaptation funding. Somalia,
the most vulnerable, ranks only 71st for per person funding disbursements. None of the countries with the
five highest disbursements had high or very high vulnerability scores. At the other end of the spectrum, 38
high vulnerability countries (out of 60) and 5 very high vulnerability countries (out of 8) received less than
$1 per person in climate adaptation funding, while two (Central African Republic and DPRK) received no
disbursements at all. Notably, none of the largest five recipients are fragile contexts.

An additional challenge is ensuring that funding reaches the most at-risk people within these countries.
Many communities may be particularly vulnerable to climate-related risks, from people affected by conflict
whose capacity to manage shocks is already strained, to migrants and displaced people who may struggle
to access the services and assistance they need, to urban poor people and other marginalized communities.
Support needs to reach these communities most vulnerable to climate-related risks as a priority.

The issues are not only financial. The report argues it is time to shake off business as usual and turn words
into action. Much of what needs to be done has been known for years – it is just overdue in implementation.
But we also need to scale up some new lessons learned more recently from our changed environment.
Fundamentally, we need to ensure that we are implementing the intertwined commitments in the Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs), the Paris Agreement and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction
2015–2030 in a joined-up way. And we must do a much better job of ensuring that all actors – including
governments, donors, the humanitarian, development, climate and environmental sectors – prioritize
support for the people, communities and countries most at risk.

6 | World Disasters Report 2020

Disasters during the COVID-19 pandemic
Climate change is not waiting for COVID-19 to be brought under control. Many people are being directly
affected by the pandemic and climate-driven disasters all at once, and the world’s poorest and most at-
risk people are being hit first and hardest. Over 100 disasters took place between March 2020 (when the
pandemic was announced) and six months later when this report was finalized, and over 50 million people
were affected. So, we may well be “busy” with the pandemic, but there’s still never been a more urgent
time to act.

More than More than More than

100 50 10
disasters million different disasters
occurred during the people have affected over
first 6 months of the been affected 250,000 people
COVID-19 pandemic

99%
of people affected were impacted by
extreme climate- and weather-related disasters

Sources: IFRC GO, EM-DAT

Notes: WHO declared the COVID-19 pandemic on 11 March 2020. Figures are from 1 March 2020 to 1 September 2020.

Executive Summary:
Executive
Executive
summary
summary
| 7
 The World Disasters Report 2020 takes a deep dive into the disaster risks that climate change is driving, and
analyses the action needed to address their human impacts.

Chapter 2, Hazards everywhere - climate and disaster trends and impacts, analyses how the number
of disasters has increased over time, and how climate- and weather-related disasters have increased in
number and as a percentage of all disasters. As a result, we can expect not only less time to recover between
disasters, but that multiple disasters will happen at once, in a manner described as compounding shocks. For
example, the dangers of cyclones, flooding, droughts, fires or heat waves did not retreat while the world was
adapting to the COVID-19 pandemic. This chapter looks at the potential humanitarian impacts of extreme
weather events exacerbated by climate change over the next 10 to 30 years – including displacement, food
insecurity and loss of livelihoods, damage to property, injury and loss of life – and the likelihood that many
people will be pushed beyond their ability to cope. The number of people affected by climatological disasters
is rising, and will continue to rise unless we take action on both climate change adaptation and mitigation.

Chapter 3, Climate as a risk multiplier - trends in vulnerability and exposure, looks at the uneven
geographic impacts of climate- and weather-related hazards between regions (with Asia-Pacific bearing the
greatest burden) and within countries. It considers how trends, such as rapid, unplanned urbanization and
social and economic inequality, affect who is at greatest risk. It argues that efforts to reduce risks must be
based on a fuller understanding of why some people are more vulnerable and/or have less capacity to cope
with a crisis than others, bearing in mind the groups of people who tend to be more vulnerable, but also
the significant variations of experience and circumstances within and between groups.

Without this, we will fail to reach the people most in need. The chapter also examines the strain the
humanitarian system was under even before the global shock of the novel coronavirus, and warns that
existing gaps will be worsened by the COVID-19 crisis.

Chapter 4, Reducing risks and building resilience - minimizing the impacts of potential and
predicted extreme events, sets out how to effectively reduce the risk of climate- and weather-related
disasters by reducing exposure and vulnerability, and increasing people’s capacities to manage shocks and
stresses. It calls for climate adaptation and risk-informed development efforts to be urgently scaled up today
to respond to rising risks, and for a transformation in all approaches to resilience across the development,
humanitarian, environmental and climate sectors.

Programmes and operations need to become ‘climate smart’; we must do more to collaborate, reinforce
and align efforts and co-produce solutions; and our adaptation and risk reduction practices must involve
communities – particularly women, youth and indigenous people – in their design if they are to truly meet
the needs of the most at-risk people. The chapter also looks at how the humanitarian sector has to not
only become more effective, but also evolve if it is to cope with the increasing frequency and severity of
climate- and weather-related events, specifically by expanding multi-hazard early warning and anticipatory
approaches.

8 | World Disasters Report 2020

Chapter 5, Going green - strengthening the environmental sustainability of response and recovery
operations, addresses the prospects for humanitarian assistance itself to become greener and more
sustainable. It outlines ways in which the environmental sustainability of response and recovery operations
can be strengthened while limiting the resulting climate and environmental footprint. And it argues that
humanitarian organizations have a responsibility to do no harm, which means taking a much more serious
approach across the sector to greening our own activities and operations, particularly in relation to our
carbon footprint and our impact on the environment.

Chapter 6, Climate-smart disaster risk governance - ensuring inclusive and coherent regulatory
frameworks, explores the imperative for countries to improve the effectiveness of their national risk
governance frameworks in the face of increasing disaster risks and worsening climate trends. This should
happen through coherent law and policy reform processes that enhance resilience to climate and disaster
risks in a more systematic way. In this way, nations can optimize their available resources and increase
the efficiency of their risk management measures. More integrated domestic laws and policies addressing
climate and disaster risk are a key way to put in place cross-cutting international commitments under the
SDGs, the Paris Agreement and the Sendai Framework.

Chapter 7, Smart financing - getting the money where it’s needed most, argues that our current
climate finance structures are not yet hitting the target when it comes to allocation. Smart financing is
about the where and how of spending, not just the how much. It means deliberately directing money to the
countries and communities most at risk of climate change crises and designing holistic funding strategies
from a starting point of what these people and places really require. There is a clear responsibility for
developed countries to meet their commitments to provide financing, and also for all those involved in
spending it to ensure it is best directed and designed to make the greatest difference for the people who
need it most. This must involve integrating the experience and expertise of local people and systems facing
the worst effects of climate change. This needs a concerted effort not only to target the most vulnerable
places, but also to develop financing plans and tools which support the best outcomes for people.

Throughout, the World Disasters Report 2020 insists that urgent action must be taken at the community level,
where it is needed the most. But all actors have to be smarter about how they do this. In its recommendations,
the report calls for all actors to be climate smart, to get the priorities right, and to integrate and
localize climate and disaster risk management approaches.

Executive summary | 9
DISASTERS IN 2019

Heatwaves, Western
Europe
June to August 2019
3 heatwaves affecting
Belgium, France,
Germany, Italy, the
Netherlands, Spain,
Switzerland and the UK
caused 3,453 deaths

97.6 million
people were affected Hurricane Dorian,
Bahamas and USA
and 24,396 people September 2019
were killed Caused 379 deaths

97%
Ebola outbreak,
DRC
August 2018–January 2020
were affected Caused 2,264 deaths
by climate- (2019 only)
and weather-
related disasters

Floods, Paraguay
May 2019
Affected more than 522,000
DISASTERS people and caused 23 deaths

According to EM-DAT taxonomy

Storm Earthquake Disease

Outbreak
Flood Volcanic
activity
Landslide
(hydromet)

Wildfire Sources: IFRC 2020 based on data from EM-DAT, NCEI (NOAA), WHO, DFO, FIRMS (NASA), National Hurricane Center, Joint
Typhoon Warning Center, IBTrACS (NOAA), ReliefWeb, secondary data review
Heatwave Note: The maps used do not imply the expression of any opinion on the part of the International Federation of Red Cross
and Red Crescent Societies or National Societies concerning the legal status of a territory or of its authorities.
10 Drought
| World Disasters Report 2020
 308
disasters were triggered 77%
by natural hazards of disasters triggered
by natural hazards
were climate- or
weather-related

Drought, Afghanistan
April 2018–July 2019
Affected 10.6 million people

Typhoons Faxai and Hagibis, Japan

September–October 2019
Affected more than 510,000 people

Cyclones Kammuri and Phanfone,

Philippines
December 2019
Affected 1.9 million and 3.2 million people
Cyclone Fani, India respectively and caused 67 deaths
May 2019
Affected 20 million
people and caused
50 deaths

Cyclones Idai and Kenneth,

Comoros, Malawi, Mozambique
and Zimbabwe Wildfires, Australia
March and April 2019 September 2019–February 2020
Affected more than 3 million people 19.4 million hectares burned
and caused 1,294 deaths

Drought, East and Southern Africa

January–December 2019
Affected more than 9 million people
in 12 countries

127 59 25 8 10 8 32 3 36
Floods Storms Landslides Wildfires Extreme Droughts Earthquakes Volcanic Disease
(hydromet) temperatures Executive summary
Executive || 11
summaryoutbreaks
activities
Afghanistan, 2019. After years of drought,
flash floods in March 2019 caused deaths and
damage across many provinces in Afghanistan.
Around the world, many communities are
being affected by concurrent and consecutive
disasters, leaving them with little time to recover
before the next shock arrives.

© Afghan Red Crescent Society /

12 Abdullah
Meer World Disasters
| Rasikh Report 2020
Get climate smart
Humanitarian, development as well as climate and environmental actors need to become much better
prepared to take actions triggered by a forecast (ranging from providing cash, sanitation and hygiene kits
or shelter tool kits to safeguarding livelihood measures such as evacuations of livestock, among others)
including through forecast-based financing. The World Disasters Report 2020 argues that it is time to take this
approach to scale, through both its incorporation in national disaster risk management laws, policies and
plans, and in the procedures and practices of humanitarian donors and organizations.

The key to this lies in taking full account of – and acting on – what science tells us about upcoming risks, while
understanding that these may be very different from those of even the recent past. This requires combining
an existing understanding of vulnerabilities and capacities with one of possible future risks at different time
scales (including weather forecasts, seasonal forecasts and longer-term climate change projections).

For disaster risk management programming, both long-term and medium/seasonal forecasts can be critical
for planning and investment, while short-term forecasts should trigger anticipatory action. Forecast-based
financing and similar approaches have gone well beyond the proof-of-concept phase, with IFRC, National
Red Cross Red and Crescent Societies and other partners integrating them into their work in more than 60
countries to date. All early warning systems must reach the most at-risk people, and be easily understood
and acted on by them, while investments in early warning must be matched by investments in early action
if people’s lives are to be saved. At the same time, information about risks and especially vulnerable groups
that is collected to develop early warning and early action systems can seamlessly inform long-term risk
reduction and adaptation planning (but currently rarely does!). For instance, alongside investments in flood
early warning systems for vulnerable communities, critical infrastructure must be made more resilient in
order to withstand the predictable – and often rising – risk of weather extremes and rising sea levels.

Get the priorities right

Our collective goal is to keep everyone safe from disasters, but our first priority and focus should be the
communities that are most exposed and vulnerable to climate risks.

The World Disasters Report 2020 shows that international climate and disaster risk reduction finance are not
keeping pace with adaptation needs in low income countries, and the countries with the very highest risk
and lowest adaptive capacities are not being prioritized.

A clear mandate to focus on the most at-risk people – and to ensure they participate in decision-making – is
also missing from many disaster risk management laws and national adaptation plans. While the people and
communities most at risk vary widely from place to place, slum dwellers, migrants and displaced persons,
indigenous communities, older and disabled persons and persons with diverse sexual orientation, gender
identity and expression and sex characteristics are among the people most frequently left behind.

Executive summary | 13
 Integrate and localize the approach
‘Integration’ may not sound like a particularly revolutionary approach to the global climate crisis, but it is
indispensable. The main global regulatory frameworks – the SDGs, the Sendai Framework and the Paris
Agreement – already call for integrated approaches in climate change adaptation, disaster risk reduction
and development. However, few national disaster risk management laws and policies fully integrate climate
change adaptation and some states employ parallel and separate institutional mechanisms and planning
processes for climate change adaptation, disaster risk management and development.

There is also a lack of integration across international finance sources, with climate, development and
humanitarian funding streams often operating in uncoordinated ways, leaving gaps in coverage – particularly
in support for local responders and community-level action.

Local humanitarian and civil society organizations can anticipate, respond to, and support the recovery
of affected communities, if these communities have the resources they need. Multilateral climate finance
is extremely difficult for civil society groups to access, and there is a collective blind-spot that can prevent
support from being available for long-term institutional capacity building of local disaster responders.

Summary of recommendations
For governments
• Design investments, including COVID-19 financial stimulus packages, to support a green, resilient and
inclusive society, investing in climate change mitigation and adaptation.
• Ensure that major infrastructure, such as schools, hospitals, child and senior care facilities, seawalls,
power plants and water and sanitation facilities, is designed (and where possible retrofitted) to withstand
projected climate and weather extremes and rising sea levels, making use of environmental impact
assessments as a regulatory tool.
• Review disaster risk management laws, policies and plans to ensure they are climate smart, understood
and implemented. These should also consider key innovations such as forecast-based action and
financing, linked to shock-resistant social protection systems.
• Invest and design integrated and people-centred early warning and early action systems that assure
timely delivery of actionable warnings at community level, as well as an adequate protective response.
• Ensure decentralized access to funding for adaptation and disaster risk management activities,
particularly at the local level.
For humanitarian (and other relevant civil society) organizations
• Embrace and strengthen climate adaptation, in particular in urban settings, as well as in contexts where
development practitioners may be less present, such as complex crises.
• Scale up use of forecast information in planning and learn from successes in forecast-based triggers for
early action

14 | World Disasters Report 2020

• Continue to strengthen rapid response and scale up capacity for disasters that cannot be avoided.
• Take responsibility to transparently report and improve on global and local climate and environmental
footprints, strengthen the environmental sustainability of humanitarian activities and impact, and make
stronger links to the environment throughout humanitarian work.

For multilateral and bilateral donors

• Design COVID-19 support packages to enable a green, resilient and inclusive recovery, investing in
climate change mitigation and adaptation.
• Increase ambition to match the adaptation needs of the most vulnerable developing countries.
• Ensure allocation of climate and disaster risk reduction finance prioritizes countries that are at the very
highest risk and lowest capacity.
• Change procedures so that multilateral climate finance can be accessed at local level for community-led
resilience building as well as for strengthening long-term institutional and response capacities.
• Scale up support for anticipatory approaches so that many more people can receive assistance ahead
of predictable shocks.
• Support humanitarian organizations to achieve a greener approach (which should include adequate
budgeting for strengthening systems and allow for sustainable procurement) and coordinate among
themselves to avoid contradictions in their demands on funding recipients.
For climate change institutions and experts
• Embrace and promote more effective management of disaster risk caused by climate change as a critical
element of adaptation and thus an important goal of global and domestic climate action, alongside
mitigation.
• Connect analytical tools (as well as policy and financing instruments) for long-term adaptation with
short-term forecast-based action and post-disaster response.
• Redouble efforts, in cooperation with humanitarian and development partners, to ensure that
communities receive timely and understandable scientific information about climate-driven risks.
• Build on the experience of the humanitarian and disaster risk reduction communities in managing shocks,
which includes the need for multi-stakeholder approaches, and a strong focus on implementation at
local level.
For everyone
• Ensure that the most vulnerable people are addressed as a matter of priority in climate change
adaptation and disaster risk management.
• Listen more closely to the voice of communities, to understand local knowledge, coping mechanisms,
practices and needs related to climate risk, and to design culturally appropriate programmes.
• Support and empower the leadership of local civil society and communities in climate change adaptation
and disaster risk management efforts.
• Work together across silos to address climate-driven disaster risks.

Executive summary | 15
Mozambique, 2020. In Praia Nova, people are still
struggling to get back on their feet a year after
Cyclone Idai.

16IFRC / |AnetteWorld
© Disasters
Selmer-Andresen Report 2020
Time to act
COVID-19 has demonstrated that humanity has the capacity to recognize and respond to a global crisis,
finding resources where none seemed available, and taking unprecedented and rapid steps to respond to
the crisis.

Climate change is an even more significant challenge to humanity than the novel coronavirus, one which
literally threatens our long-term survival.

We must address this threat by taking action to reverse climate change. In the meantime, we must work to
limit the deaths and damage that climate-driven disasters are already driving.

We all – governments, donors, the humanitarian, and development, climate and environment communities –
need to act effectively before it’s too late. Let’s not miss our chance.

Download the full report.

Executive summary | 17
THE FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES
OF THE INTERNATIONAL RED CROSS
AND RED CRESCENT MOVEMENT

Humanity Independence
The International Red Cross and Red Crescent The Movement is independent. The National Socie-
Movement, born of a desire to bring assistance with- ties, while auxiliaries in the humanitarian services of
out discrimination to the wounded on the battlefield, their governments and subject to the laws of their
endeavours, in its international and national capaci- respective countries, must always maintain their
ty, to prevent and alleviate human suffering wherev- autonomy so that they may be able at all times to act
er it may be found. Its purpose is to protect life and in accordance with the principles of the Movement.
health and to ensure respect for the human being.
It promotes mutual understanding, friendship, coop- Voluntary service
eration and lasting peace amongst all peoples. It is a voluntary relief movement not prompted in
any manner by desire for gain.
Impartiality
It makes no discrimination as to nationality, race, Unity
religious beliefs, class or political opinions. It endeav- There can be only one Red Cross or Red Crescent
ours to relieve the suffering of individuals, being Society in any one country. It must be open to all. It
guided solely by their needs, and to give priority to must carry on its humanitarian work throughout its
the most urgent cases of distress. territory.

Neutrality Universality
In order to enjoy the confidence of all, the Movement The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Move-
may not take sides in hostilities or engage at any ment, in which all societies have equal status and share
time in controversies of a political, racial, religious or equal responsibilities and duties in helping each other,
ideological nature. is worldwide.
 The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
(IFRC) is the world’s largest humanitarian network, with 192 National Red
Cross and Red Crescent Societies and around 14 million volunteers.
Our volunteers are present in communities before, during and after a crisis
or disaster. We work in the most hard to reach and complex settings in the
world, saving lives and promoting human dignity. We support communities
to become stronger and more resilient places where people can live safe
and healthy lives, and have opportunities to thrive.

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