Global warming is expected to trigger an increasing frequency and severity of climatically-related natural disasters in the coming decades. Climate prediction models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) suggest that the wet areas will get wetter (and stormier) and the dry areas, drier and hotter—accentuating extreme environmental events such as droughts and floods (Parry 2002). The periodic El Nino phenomenon (every 2-7 years), which sets off a series of weather abnormalities and climatic disasters, has become both more intense and frequent during the last 20 years. This may be associated with global warming.

These trends may already be taking hold. Compared to the 1960s, major climatic natural disasters were three times more frequent during the 1990s, accelerating even more rapidly in the second half of the decade (Delaney et al. 2003). The 1990s was the warmest decade in the last thousand years. Glaciers receded throughout the world, plants bloomed sooner, birds laid their eggs weeks earlier, and damage from storms was up eight-fold from the 1970s.

Half of the world's poorest countries are considered at high risk from natural disasters, and they are increasing in frequency (Freeman et al. 2003). During 1990-1998, 94% of the world's 568 major natural disasters were in developing countries, as were more than 97% of all natural disaster-related deaths (World Bank 20002001). The developed countries are also beginning to experience the effects of heat waves and droughts that threaten agriculture in their drier zones (Coghlan 2003).

Major parts of Africa are under constant threat of drought. There have been seven major drought episodes on the African continent in the last four decades: 1965-66, 1972-74, 198184, 1986-87, 1991-92, 1994-95 and 2000-01. The 1972-74 and 1981-84 droughts in the Sahel of West Africa and in the Horn of Africa caused massive dislocation and suffering. Morocco's 1994/95 drought cut its agricultural production in half, and droughts frequently wreak havoc in West Asian countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.

Suffering from natural disasters is a function not only of the strength of the storm, flood, drought, fire, or earthquake; but also of people's vulnerability to it. This can be summarized in the simple equation (Delaney et al. 2003):

Risk = Hazard + Vulnerability

The poor face a greater risk from a given hazard due to their greater vulnerability. They lack the resources to prepare for these disasters, to endure their onslaught, and to cope with their consequences. Their housing is not strong
enough to withstand gale-force wind, rain, or earthquakes; they often live in flood-prone areas avoided by the wealthier class; emergency services may not be available to them, especially in rural areas; they lack paved roads for speedy evacuation; they cannot afford stocks of emergency food and water supplies; and so on. As the poor bear the brunt of each disaster, they are pushed even further down the socioeconomic ladder; women and children especially suffer (World Bank 20002001). This makes it even more difficult to endure the next catastrophe.