Dramatic Decline In Climate-Related Deaths Persists Through 2022

Written by Bjorn Lomborg on January 5, 2023. Posted in Current News

Fewer and fewer people die from climate-related natural disasters, this is even true in 2022; despite breathless climate reporting

98 percent fewer people died in 2022 than a hundred years ago from climate-related natural disasters like floods, droughts, storms, wildfires, and extreme temperatures.

Why is this consistently not reported?

In the 1920s, the death count from climate-related disasters was 485,000 on average every year. In the last full decade, 2010-2019, the average was 18,362 dead per year—or 96.2 percent lower.

In the first year of the new decade, 2020, the number of dead was even lower at 14,885 — 96.9 percent lower than the 1920s average.

You heard a lot about some deadly climate catastrophes in 2022, but actually the top two deadliest, you probably haven’t even heard about.

2,465 died in Uganda in a July famine, and 2,035 died in from heavy rains in India over the summer. Pakistan’s monsoon floods are third at 1,739 dead.

The total list of deadly disasters has 219 more entries, all catastrophes, all terrible. And yet, in summation, much, much lower than what it used to be.

All of these catastrophes are measured by the most respected global database, the International Disaster Database.

There is some uncertainty about complete reporting from the early decades, which is why this graph starts in 1920, and if anything this uncertainty means the graph underestimates the reduction in deaths.

Also note, the database has big problems with heat and cold deaths, where there is much more reporting on heat deaths (which it erratically includes), but globally, cold deaths outweigh heat deaths 9:1.

That climate deaths are becoming much rarer is clearly the opposite of what you hear, but that is because we’re often just being told of one disaster after another – telling us how many events are happening.

The number of reported events is increasing, but that is mainly due to better reporting, lower thresholds, and better accessibility (the CNN effect). For instance: For Denmark, the database only shows events starting from 1976.

Instead, look at the number of dead per year, which is much harder to fudge.

Given that these numbers fluctuate enormously from year to year (especially in the past, with huge droughts and floods in China, India, and elsewhere), they are here presented as averages of each decade (1920-29, 1930-39, etc.).

If we look at the absolute number of people dying from climate-related disasters, it is simply incontrovertible that these have declined dramatically. This is because richer and more resilient societies are much better able to protect their citizens (see here).

Notice, this does not mean that there is no global warming or that possibly a climate signal could eventually lead to further deaths. Global warming is a real problem that we should fix smartly.

But panic from bad media reporting, and scaring kids and adults alike does not help us be smart.

The graph shows us that our increased wealth and increased adaptive capacity has vastly overshadowed any potential negative impact from the climate when it comes to human climate vulnerability.

See more here climatechangedispatch

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