Latin Americans affected more than ever by climate change

ACN News Agency (Cuba): “According to the number of people affected by extreme temperatures, forest fires, droughts, and storms and flooding reached 5 million in the 1970´s and over 40 million in the last decade”, revealed the publication of the UN Environmental Program and the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. The publication was recently revealed during the Climate Change Summit held in Cancun, Mexico.

According to the report entitled “The vital graphics of climate change for Latin America and the Caribbean¨, the considerable increase of people affected is ¨a consequence of the increase of human settlements in the region, urban marginalized areas as well as the vulnerability of the coastal region in face of these events”. The number of storms between 2000 and 2009 multiplied by 12 compared to those that occurred between 1970 and 1979. In that same period flooding quadrupled.

The data of the study revealed that the estimated costs of the damages due
to the extreme climatic events in the last 10 years surpassed 40 million dollars in Latin America. The CEPAL expert and co author of the document, Luis Miguel Galindo said that the extreme climatic events show a correlation between global warming, increase in temperatures, intensification of hurricanes and a hike in the sea levels. For example, 36 hurricanes were registered between 2002 and 2009 in Meso America and the Caribbean while 9 to 15 hurricanes occurred in the 1980´s and 1990´s, respectively….

Hurricane Ike approaching Cuba, 2008