Economic losses from disasters are currently $240 billion a year but there is little prospect of reducing that. That’s a finding of the preliminary results of a catastrophe modeling study presented at the UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction. Dr. Milan Simic, Senior Vice President of AIR Worldwide told delegates: “It is next to impossible to reduce existing levels of economic losses but that they provide a baseline and a context for improving on key areas of development over the lifetime of the new framework for disaster risk reduction which hopefully will be adopted tomorrow.” In response Jerry Velasquez, UNISDR’s Chief of Advocacy said that the way we do development needs to be addressed to improve the situation: “Development drivers are stronger drivers of the increase of risks than hazards themselves. In order to limit economic losses in the future, we need to improve urban planning and make economic growth resilient.” The UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction is taking place this week in Sendai, Japan.
