Climate risk is a major driver and amplifier of disaster losses and failed development. It amplifies risk. Decades-old projections about climate change have come true much sooner than we expected and at a calamitous scale.
Global warming has increased the chances of storms reaching Category 3 or higher.
The analysis, of satellite images dating to 1979, shows that warming has increased the likelihood of a hurricane developing into a major one of Category 3 or higher, with sustained winds greater than 110 miles an hour, by about 8 percent a decade (Kossin et al 2020).
The risk of climate-related impacts depends on complex interactions between climate-related hazards and the vulnerability, exposure and adaptive capacity of human and natural systems. At current levels of global greenhouse gas emissions, the world remains on course to exceed the agreed temperature thresholds of either 1.5 °C or 2 °C above pre-industrial levels, which would increase the risks of pervasive climate change impacts beyond what is already seen (WHO 2021)
Credit: DVIDSHUB. / U.S. Air Force