FILE – A polling official enjoys a cooling spray of water under intense heat at a distribution venue for Electronic Voting Machines and other election material on the eve of the fifth phase of polling in the six-week-long national election in Lucknow, India, Sunday, May 19, 2024.
FILE – People evacuated from a village near Jakhau board a bus to travel to a shelter in Kutch district, India, Wednesday, June 14, 2023. A top United Nations official says even though climate change makes disasters such as cyclones, floods and droughts more intense, more frequent and striking more places, fewer people are dying from those catastrophes globally. Thats because of better warning, planning and resilience.
“Fewer people are dying of disasters and if you look at that as a proportion of total population, it’s even fewer,” Kishore said in his first interview since taking office in mid-May. “We often take for granted the progress that we’ve made.” While there are fewer deaths globally from disasters, there are still pockets in the poorest of countries, especially in Africa, where deaths are worsening or at least staying the same, Guha-Sapir said. It’s much like public health’s efforts to eradicate measles, success in most places, but areas that can least cope are not improving, she said.