The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction asserts that humanity's erroneous perception of risk has led to a "spiral of self-destruction," so that by 2030, we might be bombarded with daily disasters.
According to a new Global Assessment Report, the fate that humanity is on track to face is a result of faulty risk perceptions caused by a trifecta of mental errors: optimism, underestimation, and invincibility.
The UN agency noted that despite world leaders' pledges to enhance resilience, combat climate change, and promote sustainable development pathways, "current societal, political and economic choices are doing the reverse." This puts progress toward the Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) outlined in Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in jeopardy.
"To change course, new approaches are needed," the 256-page report reads. "This will require transformations in what governance systems value and how systemic risk is understood and addressed. Doing more of the same will not be enough."
Thus, in an uncertain risk landscape, global systems are becoming increasingly integrated and hence more vulnerable.
"Local risks, like a new virus in Wuhan, China, can become global; global risks like climate change are having major impacts in every locality. Indirect, cascading impacts can be significant," it said.
Earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanoes are among the disasters that potentially await humanity, as are climate and weather-related disasters, as well as outbreaks of biological hazards such as crop pests and epidemics, according to the report.
The authors said that 350 to 500 medium- to large-scale disasters have happened each year during the last two decades. By 2030, they project that this rate will rise to 560 disasters each year, or about 1.5 per day.
Human activity is putting the world in perilous situations and pushing it to its ecological and existential boundaries, according to the authors. To accelerate climate change action and achieve the SDGs, risk reduction must be at the forefront of efforts, they offered.
According to UNDDR spokeswoman Jeanette Elsworth, cited in a Live Science report, a broken "risk perception" can catalyze and compound disasters by consciously neglecting investment in disaster prevention efforts while also failing to act with sufficient urgency on related issues like climate change. This can cause disasters to become larger and more impactful than they would have been if sufficient efforts on prevention and risk reduction had been made.
"The world needs to do more to incorporate disaster risk in how we live, build and invest, which is setting humanity on a spiral of self-destruction," Amina J. Mohammed, the UN's deputy secretary-general, said in a statement.
The COVID-19 pandemic is cited by the experts as an example of myopia and a lack of knowledge of catastrophic risks.
"Myopic thinking meant that, despite warnings and data that a pandemic was overdue, preparedness was inadequate and governance systems across the world struggled to pivot to a new reality," they wrote. The severity of the pandemic was also exacerbated by populations across the globe being exposed to other health risks. "Exposure to underlying risk factors, such as high levels of air pollution, unsafe housing or limited access to health services, were found to significantly affect fatality rates," the report said.
Extreme weather events are becoming more common as a result of human-caused climate change, according to the authors. They suggested that policymakers endeavor to ensure that development and investments are climate-proof. Costa Rica, for example, established a carbon price in 1997 to assist reverse deforestation, which helps to lower disaster risks while also benefiting the economy, according to the UN research authors.
The authors discovered that calamities do not affect everyone evenly. With an average poverty rate of 34%, 18 of the 20 countries with the highest disaster risk were middle- and lower-income countries.
"By the end of this decade, climate change and disasters caused by natural hazards may push as many as 132 million people into poverty," Elsworth is quoted as saying.
Nevertheless, the experts have devised a three-step approach to help the world avoid spiraling into self-destruction.
For starters, humans must stop underestimating "climate change risk, costs to ecosystems and the positive social benefits of risk reduction." The second step entails creating systems that "factor in how human minds make decisions about risk." Finally, governments and financial systems must collaborate across disciplines to assist disaster victims.
According to the report, during calamities, local leadership is essential.
"Rifts can emerge between the national and local levels during major crises, as was the case in many jurisdictions during the COVID-19 crisis. Autonomy for local-level action is essential," they stressed.