The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said in a new report that even with the outbreak of the pandemic, climate change is not taking a breather from wreaking havoc.
Geneva, Switzerland:
The Red Cross said, Tuesday, that the world must react with the same urgency to climate change as the Coronavirus crisis, warning that global warming is a greater threat than the Corona virus.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said in a new report that even with the outbreak of the pandemic, climate change is not taking a breather from wreaking havoc.
In the report, on global disasters since the 1960s, the Geneva-based organization noted that the world has experienced more than 100 disasters - many of them climate-related - since the World Health Organization declared the outbreak a pandemic in March.
She added that more than 50 million people were affected.
"Of course, Covid is there, in front of us, it affects our families, friends and relatives," the Secretary-General of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, Jagan Chapagin, said in a virtual press conference.
"It is a very, very serious crisis that the world is currently facing," he said of the epidemic that has killed more than 1.3 million people.
But he warned that the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies expects that "climate change will have a greater impact in the medium and long term on human life and on Earth."
While it seems increasingly likely that one or more vaccines will soon be available against Covid-19, Chapagin stressed that "unfortunately there is no vaccine for climate change."
No vaccine for climate change
He warned that when it comes to global warming, "it will require more measures and sustainable investments to protect human life on this earth."
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said that the frequency and intensity of extreme weather and climate-related phenomena have already increased dramatically in recent decades.
In 2019 alone, the world was hit by 308 natural disasters - 77 per cent of them climate- or weather-related - killing nearly 24,400 people.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said the number of climate and weather-related disasters has been rising steadily since the 1960s, and has increased by about 35 percent since the 1990s.
This is a fatal development.
The report said that weather and climate-related disasters have killed more than 410,000 people over the past decade, most of them in poor countries, where heatwaves and storms have proven to be the deadliest.
In the face of this threat, which "effectively threatens our long-term survival," the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies called on the international community to act with the required speed.
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