Rising CO2 Levels may Double Floods | 24 Jan 2020
Why in News
The report “Impacts of Carbon Dioxide Emissions on Global Intense Hydro-meteorological Disasters” has established a link between climate change and the rising incidence of hydro-meteorological events, specifically floods and storms across the world.
- The report has collected climate data from 155 countries over 46 years (1970 to 2016).
- The analysis is based on econometric modelling which involves accounting for a country’s vulnerability to hazards, its Gross Domestic Product (GDP), population density and changes in mean rainfall.
Key Findings
- The number of intense “hydro-meteorological” disasters could increase by 5.4% annually for an average country facing annually nearly one “extreme disaster”.
- Hydrometeorological disasters include floods, droughts, hurricanes, tornadoes, landslides, etc.
- Extreme disaster is termed as one that causes 100 or more fatalities and/or affects 1,000 or more people).
- The risk of extreme floods or storms could double every 13 years at the rate carbon-dioxide concentrations are building up in the atmosphere.
- The yearly increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide has been about 2.4 parts per million or about 0.6 % from the base 396.5 ppm level for 2010 to 2016.
- India faces 5-10 times more risk for extreme disaster being an average country.