Wednesday 13 November 2013

India lost $591m to disasters

Pramila Krishnan 

REPORTING FROM WARSAW; UN CLIMATE CHANGE CONVENTION 2013; COP19

A US Marine carries an injured woman who survived the Super Typhoon Haiyan in the central coastal city of Tacloban, as they disembark from a military cargo plane on Tuesday. The UN launched an appeal for a third of a billion dollars on November 12 as US and UK warships steamed towards the typhoon-ravaged Philippines where well over 10,000 people are feared dead. — AFP


Warsaw: India stands 46th among the 195 countries which were assessed for global climate change risk. The rankings were released on Tuesday at the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) in Warsaw.
According to this global report, India has suffered losses to the tune of $591.28 millions in terms of purchasing power parity (PPP) in 2012 alone due to climate change problems.
The report highlights that all the top 10 worst affected countries were the least developed countries. The top three were island nation Haiti, the Philippines and  Pakistan.
The index was calculated based on the impacts of weather-related loss events from 1993 to 2012 in all countries. For example, losses in tragedies like the tsunami and cylone Thane that affected Puducherry and the recent Uttarakhand flash floods have been computed using the adjusted value.
PPP is a mathematical formula, which economists use to create parity between two currencies to make them compared. In simple terms, purchasing power parity could be called as adjusted value.
Releasing the report, Sonke Kreft and David Eckstein said, “This index is an analysis based on one of the most reliable data sets available on the impacts of extreme weather events and associated socio economic data. More than 5,30,000 people have died as a direct result of almost 15,000 extreme weather events.”
They mentioned that many developing countries are already taking measures in preparation for climate related disasters, promoting as well as implementing adaptation.

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