The world is set to face 1.5 disasters a day — 560 a year — by 2030 as humans put themselves on a "spiral of self-destruction" by heating up the climate and ignoring the risk, pushing millions more people into poverty, the United Nations warned on Tuesday.
In the past two decades, between 350 and 500 midsize to major disasters were recorded annually, but governments are "fundamentally" underestimating their true impact on lives and livelihoods, according to a biennial U.N. report on disasters.
"Raising the alarm by speaking the truth is not only necessary but crucial," said Mami Mizutori, head of the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), which published the Global Assessment Report 2022.