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The risk of dying from climate-related disasters has fallen dramatically over the past century, declining by an estimated 99.4 per cent even as the global population has quadrupled.
Data comparisons show that in the 1920s, climate disasters killed about 241 people per million globally, a figure that has dropped to roughly 1.5 per million in the 2020s.
By contrast, the global risk of dying in traffic accidents today is about 145 per million – nearly 100 times higher. Historical records underline how deadly climate events once were: in 1921 alone, more than one million people died across Eurasia due to a combination of extreme heat, drought, and famine, a toll around 100 times higher than total annual climate-related deaths today.
Contemporary reports, including a New York Herald headline describing “Deaths for Millions in 1921’s Record Heat Wave”, highlight the scale of past catastrophes. Estimates suggest climate-related disasters killed around 50 times more people a century ago, and in the 1870s the death toll was almost 10 times higher again, underscoring the long-term decline in climate disaster mortality.
This article was originally published by the Daily Telegraph New Zealand.
