Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction 2015
Making development sustainable: The future of disaster risk management


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Part I - Chapter 3
3.5 The additionality of climate
change
While climate change can result in lower expected losses in selected regions, for some parts of the world, changing hazard patterns and higher levels of vulnerability due to climate change are expected to increase overall losses. In the Caribbean, these losses will be significant.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has highlighted that there is low confidence in any observed long-term (i.e., 40 years or more) increases in tropical cyclone activity (intensity, frequency and duration), after accounting for past changes in observing capabilities. It is likely
Figure 3.28 AAL from tropical cyclone wind for Caribbean and Central American countries, with and without climate change
(Source: CIMNE-INGENIAR, 2014.)
that the global frequency of tropical cyclones will either decrease or remain essentially unchanged. However, average tropical cyclone maximum wind speed is likely to increase, although increases may not occur in all ocean basins (IPCC, 2012

IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). 2012,Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation, Full Report. (Field, C.B., V. Barros, T.F. Stocker, D. Qin, D.J. Dokken, K.L. Ebi, M.D. Mastrandrea, K.J. Mach, G.-K. Plattner, S.K. Al-len, M. Tignor and P.M. Midgley, eds.). A Special Report of Working Groups I and II of the Inter-governmental Panel on. .
).
In the Caribbean, the risk associated with tropical cyclone winds was recalculated using possible future cyclone trajectories in the North Atlantic basin simulated using climate change scenarios up to 2055 (GAR 13 paperCIMNE-INGENIAR, 2014a

GAR13 Reference CIMNE-INGENIAR (International Centre for Numerical Methods in Engineering and INGENIAR Ltda.). 2014a,Update on the Probabilistic Modelling of Natural Risks at Global Level: Global Risk Model, Global earthquake and tropical cyclone hazard assessment. Disaster risk assessment of countries for seismic, cyclonic (wind and storm surge) and flood. Background Paper prepared for the 2015 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction. Geneva, Sw.
Click here to view this GAR paper.
) but assuming constant exposure and vulnerability.
In most countries, the AAL increases under the climate change scenario (Figure 3.28). For the Caribbean basin as a whole, climate change contributes an additional US$1.4 billion to the expected average annual losses associated with
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