UN Report: Extreme Weather Displaced 2 Million People in 2018

Extreme weather events impacted close to 62 million people in 2018 and displaced more than two million as of September of that year. That's just one of the alarming findings in the UN World Meteorological Organization's (WMO) Statement on the State of the Global Climate in 2018.

“The physical signs and socio-economic impacts of climate change are accelerating as record greenhouse gas concentrations drive global temperatures towards increasingly dangerous levels,” the WMO wrote in a press release announcing the report Thursday.

2018 saw record sea level rise and high land and ocean temperatures, the report found. Since the WMO first began producing the report 25 years ago, carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere have jumped from 357 parts per million (ppm) in 1994 to 405.5 ppm in 2017.

Speaking at the launch of the report, UN Secretary-General António Guterres used the findings to call for serious decision making from world leaders at the Climate Action Summit he is convening in New York on September 23.

“Don't come with a speech, come with a plan,” he said, according to a UN press release. “This is what science says is needed. It is what young people around the globe are rightfully demanding,” he said. Two weeks ago, youth in more than 130 countries went on strike from school to protest inaction on climate change.

The report found that flooding was the climate-related disaster that impacted the largest number of people in 2018 — more than 35 million. Hurricanes Florence and Michael in the U.S. cost around $49 billion in damages and killed more than 100 people. Super typhoon Mangkhut killed at least 134 people and impacted 2.4 million, mostly in the Philippines.

WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas said that the extremes recorded for 2018 showed no sign of reversing.

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