United Nations Radio

The head of the UN Environment Programme, Achim Steiner, has pointed out that recent weather-related disasters like hurricane Gustav in the Caribbean and the worst floods in India in 50 years, underline the increasing vulnerability of humanity to natural disasters.

And he says this vulnerability is set to rise if climate change is left unchecked.

"Indeed the images of flooding, of people being airlifted, or very often not being in a position to be helped in situations of floods or droughts are part of an ever-growing disaster scenario, that with climate change will exacerbate further."

Quoting data from the insurance company Munich Re, Mr. Steiner says that by June, an estimated 400 natural disasters had occurred costing $82 billion. These include Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar in May, which left 138,000 people dead or missing; winter storm Emma in Europe in March and the floods along the Mississippi in the United States in June.

With less than 500 days to go before the deadline for the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen, the UN environment chief is calling on governments to focus on forging an agreement with binding targets on curbing greenhouse gas emissions to replace the Kyoto protocol after 2012.

Reporting for UN Radio, I'm Bissera Kostova.

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