Estimating least-developed countries’ vulnerability to climate-related extreme events over the next 50 years

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences early edition, sustainability science:

This study considers losses from extreme weather events as an indicator of a state's overall vulnerability. It argues that large-scale impacts on human development and the environment in least developed countries will occur in the second quarter of the century unless there is urgent international financial assistance to help them adapt to climate-related extreme events.

The paper examine this question using an empirically derived model of human losses to climate-related extreme events, as an indicator of vulnerability and the need for adaptation assistance. It develops a set of 50-year scenarios for these losses in one country, Mozambique, using high-resolution climate projections, and then extend the results to a sample of 23 least-developed countries.