[NYTr] Natural Disasters Quadruple over Last 20 Years - Oxfam

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

sent by Mark Graffis - activ-l

[This looks like a Reuters piece 
but no copyright or credit included.- NYTr]

Planet Ark - Nov 26, 2007
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/45520/story.htm

Disasters Quadruple oer Last 20 Years - Oxfam

LONDON - Weather-related disasters have quadrupled over the last two
decades, a leading British charity said in a report published on Sunday.

>From an average of 120 disasters a year in the early 1980s, there are
now as many as 500, with Oxfam attributing the rise to unpredictable
weather conditions cause by global warming.

"This year we have seen floods in South Asia, across the breadth of
Africa and Mexico that have affected more than 250 million people,"
said Oxfam's director Barbara Stocking.

"This is no freak year. It follows a pattern of more frequent, more
erratic, more unpredictable and more extreme weather events that are
affecting more people.

The number of people affected by disasters has risen by 68 percent,
from an average of 174 million a year between 1985 to 1994 to 254
million a year between 1995 to 2004.

"Action is needed now to prepare for more disasters otherwise
humanitarian assistance will be overwhelmed and recent advances in
human development will go into reverse," Stocking said.

Oxfam wants the UN conference on Climate Change in Bali in December to
agree a mandate to negotiate a global deal to provide assistance to
developing countries to cope with the impacts of climate change and
reduce green house gas emissions. (Reporting by John Sinnott, Editing
by Elizabeth Piper)