The bad news about the good news about the bad news

A while back, I started looking at EM-DAT, the international disaster database. It contains information about disasters and their effects – loss, damage, death etc. This is an incredibly important resource because in so far as we care about something like climate change, we tend to do so because of the damage and misery it can cause. Much of that misery arrives in the form of disasters so quantifying the damage associated with them is hugely important as a basis for measuring the effectiveness of action to reduce disaster risk and losses. See e.g. the Sendai Framework for disaster risk reduction which seeks to “achieve the substantial reduction of disaster risk and losses in lives, livelihoods and health and in the economic, physical, social, cultural and environmental assets of persons, businesses, communities and countries over [by 2030]”.

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