There are those who believe that climate change is a thing of the future, but nothing could be further from the truth. It is a current problem that is giving rise to numerous natural disasters, such as floods, storms, droughts … So that society becomes aware of the importance of making a common effort to fight climate change, officials of the Meteorological Agency of the UN, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), have presented a report on natural disasters that have occurred in the last 50 years .
Petteri Taalas, Secretary General of the World Meteorological Organization, explains that every time we are going to witness more extreme phenomena due to climate change . If the forecasts are met, the trend will continue for the next few decades.
In relation to the frequency with which natural disasters occur, the drastic change in recent decades is striking. In the 1970s there were just over 700 weather disasters . Meanwhile, today, 40 years later, the figure rises to 3,500, which means that the number of disasters has multiplied by five.
The most common are storms, floods and droughts. Mami Mizutori, who heads the United Nations agency for disaster risk reduction (UNDRR), points out that in 2020 31 million people had to leave their homes because of these disasters .
Extreme events in 2021
In 2021, extreme phenomena related to climate change have taken place in different parts of the world.
In British Columbia (Canada), temperatures of 47 degrees were recorded in June, while the average temperatures in this area are around 25 degrees . Without a doubt, it was an unprecedented figure, not only in Canada, but it is a temperature that had never been documented in an area so far north of planet Earth. The heat wave lasted for just over a week, leading to a fire crisis.
At the beginning of August, 24 degrees were collected at the Ittoqqortoormiit weather station (Greenland) . Very high temperatures for this region that caused it to rain for the first time on the highest peak of the island, something that had not happened for 70 years.
This September in Spain the effects of DANA have caused numerous material damages . Dozens of towns in Catalonia, Murcia and Castilla-La Mancha have suffered floods.
