Heatwaves already kill thousands of people every year and they risk overwhelming the world’s aid response, unless action is taken to mitigate climate change, the UN’s emergency relief chief said on Monday.
Without immediate financial help for the most vulnerable communities, the world faces a future of “ever larger and deadlier heat disasters”, Martin Griffiths told journalists in Geneva.
“The humanitarian system is not equipped, to handle crises of this scale on our own,” he said. “To avoid a future of recurrent heat disasters, we need massive and targeted investments, especially for the most vulnerable, and we need it now.”
Mr. Griffiths was speaking at the launch of a report published jointly by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC).
The publication, Extreme Heat, Preparing For Heatwaves Of The Future, details recommendations and best practice from developing countries that have put in place measures to support long-term adaptation to climate change.
According to the report, the European heatwave of 2003 was responsible for more than 70,000 deaths beyond what would normally have been expected. And the Russian heatwave of 2010, killed over 55,000 people.
“Almost everywhere that reliable data is available, heatwaves are the deadliest weather-related hazard,” the joint OCHA and IFRC report states, with society’s most vulnerable and marginalized people “pushed to the front lines” of climate change: casual labourers, agricultural workers and migrants.
Also in the crosshairs of extreme heat events are the elderly, children, pregnant and breastfeeding women, who are “at higher risk of illness and death” from higher temperatures.