Between 1998 and 2017 climate-related and geophysical disasters killed 1.3 million people and left a further 4.4 billion injured, homeless, displaced or in need of emergency assistance. While the majority of fatalities were due to geophysical events, mostly earthquakes and tsunamis, 91% of all disasters were caused by
floods, storms, droughts, heatwaves and other extreme weather events.

In 1998-2017 disaster-hit countries also reported direct economic losses valued at US$ 2,908 billion1, of which
climate-related disasters caused US$ 2,245 billion or 77% of the total. This is up from 68% (US$ 895 billion) of losses (US$ 1,313 billion) reported between 1978 and 1997. Overall, reported losses from extreme weather events rose by 151% between these two 20-year periods.

International efforts to reduce or mitigate the impacts of disasters have in the past 20 years become increasingly focused on human vulnerabilities. In 2000, the Millennium Declaration recognized the specific risk to development arising from disasters and called on the global community to “intensify our collective efforts to reduce the number and effects of natural hazards and man-made disasters” (United Nations 2000).

The Hyogo Framework for Action (UNISDR 2005) developed systems of indicators of disaster risk and vulnerability at national and subnational scales to enable decision-makers to assess the impact of disasters on social, economic, and environmental conditions and then to warn others – both officials and the people at risk – of the dangers.

The Sendai Framework was adopted at the Third UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in Japan in March 2015. It has seven strategic targets and 38 indicators for measuring progress on reducing disaster losses. These indicators align implementation of the Sendai Framework with the UN’s global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement on climate change.