Disasters are much misunderstood events, with misassumptions being common currency in popular culture, mass media, and even professional walks of life. We term these the myths of disasters for convenience. Rather than absolute errors of perception, they represent statistical generalisations about what is unlikely to happen in calamity. That people panic is perhaps the most common and enduring myth of all. Panic is a transient phenomenon that occurs only in specific circumstances. Looting, a measure of the breakdown of social order, is also uncommon, although it may occur where preconditions for it exist. Like other misconceptions, these myths fit easily into the ‘Hollywood model’ derived from highly stylised disaster movies. This model is countered by the therapeutic community that sociologists have found in post-disaster settings. Better education and more responsible reporting could do much to reduce beliefs in inaccurate portrayals of the phenomenon.

As the pace of climate change accelerates, the impacts of a warming world become more evident and more inevitable. Climate change multiplies and compounds stresses on human and natural systems and amplifies the risk and implications of slow- and sudden-onset disasters worldwide. Some of these risks can be avoided. Some can be alleviated. Some, however, may now or soon be unescapable. The risk continuum is shaped by the degree to which the international community mobilizes to mitigate emissions, to facilitate adaptation, and to prepare for climate-related impacts that cannot be eased or eliminated. The less we do to mitigate, adapt, and prepare, the more acute the risks of climate change become, especially in the global south and especially for already-vulnerable communities. With average global temperatures currently on track to exceed the 2°C target, climate change is expected to multiply the number of people susceptible to poverty, undermine food security, intensify heat and water stress, and increase the risks of fires, storms, flooding, landslides, and infectious and parasitic diseases. In this world of amplified risk, the lines between natural disasters and climate-related disasters blur. Even as these lines blur and the demand for improved coordination grows, critical institutional and legal disjunctions remain. Focusing on the Warsaw Mechanism for Loss & Damage, this chapter examines evolving efforts to construct a more effective and equitable rule of law and institutional framework at the intersection of climate change and disaster law.

Development, and particularly sustainable development, face a growing threat of being undermined by a changing climate, particularly through the impacts of frequent and extreme weather events. It is common knowledge that disasters can wipe out and set back development gains. Conversely, the social, political, economic, and environmental development decisions, options, and the paths chosen, contribute to an increase in inequality, poverty, environmental degradation, vulnerability, and exposure to hazards. Unfortunately, global commitments to deliver the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) development planning and programming still do not adequately consider or act upon these risks. Despite advances in linking DRR, CCA, and development, albeit conceptually, there is not much progress on how integration should be carried out. In 2015, three important UN agreements, (1) the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction; (2) the Paris Agreement for Climate Change, and (3) the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, were adopted. These three agreements brought coherency on how to reduce the risk and impacts of disasters thus making development gains sustainable. The disparities of locating CCA within environmental authorities, DRR within disaster management authorities, civil service and home affairs, and addressing sustainable development goals through different sectors impede such endeavors to address disaster risk and the negative consequences of disasters coherently. This, in turn, undermines sustainable development. Despite the identified differences between DRR and CCA, they are complementary development issues. Addressing disaster and climate risks to achieve sustainable development goals requires close coordination among the different organizations and sectors. It requires working coherently, avoiding duplication, and taking advantage of synergies and co-benefits in their actions. By examining how interorganizational theory conceptualizes integration, the chapter will provide a theoretical grounding for integrating DRR and CCA, taking into consideration sustainable development, by proposing an analytical framework to integrate the three policy areas.

Historically, El Niño events have been associated with droughts and famines. Climate change will make extreme El Niño events more frequent and intense. In 2015–2016, one of the warmest El Niños on record helped trigger massive droughts across Ethiopia, Southern Africa, India, the Maritime Continent, Thailand, Latin America, and Brazil. Exceptionally warm ocean waters decimated fisheries and bleached coral reefs. In Ethiopia and southern Africa, 36 million people were pushed into near-famine conditions. Building on the author’s own research, this chapter examines how climate change has contributed to the ~+0.8°C increase in strong El Niños. In a world without climate change, such a +0.8°C increase would be possible but very unlikely. In a world with climate change, such a change would be very likely. Climate change made the 2015–2016 El Niño more extreme, contributing to Ethiopia’s and southern Africa’s extreme hunger and economic loss. Climate change is hurting people now. Climate change models predict that more extreme El Niños are likely over the next twenty years. The chapter contains a firsthand account from Prosper Chirara, a poor young man from Zimbabwe devastated by drought in 2015 and 2016.

The amount of energy in the upper ocean is increasing very rapidly. Between 2014 and 2019, the global heat energy increase was equivalent to the energy released by about 12 million one-megaton nuclear bombs. But global warming does not produce an even warming of the world’s oceans. Rather, extra energy builds up and moves around in complex ways. Understanding this fact can save lives. In the near term, this recognition can lead to successful forecasts. In the longer term, this recognition will help us reduce our emissions because we can recognize now how climate change is contributing to extreme weather and catastrophes. For example, in October and November 2019, the western Indian Ocean reached the highest levels of warmth ever observed, while the eastern Indian Ocean was anomalously cold. This combination contributed to extreme flooding and locust outbreaks in East Africa and exceptionally warm and dry conditions over southern Africa and Australia. An accurate conceptual model of climate change can create opportunities for prediction. Adopting an incorrect conception of climate change as the average of collections of climate simulations can cause us to miss these opportunities.

Climate hazards arise through interactions of weather-related shocks, vulnerability, and exposure. The atmosphere is warming and population growth is increasing, setting the stage for potentially explosive increases in impacts. Of all weather hazards, heat waves tend to be the most immediate, and often the most deadly. Unfortunately, relatively small changes in air temperatures can lead to large increases in the frequency of extreme heat waves. This chapter uses 1880–2019 monthly and 1983–2016 daily temperature estimates to explore observed increase in extreme temperatures. Exceptional warmth, over more than 20 perent of the Earth's surface, has become the new norm. Warmer-than-ever conditions prevailed in 2015 through 2019. Over this same time period 71 extreme-temperature disasters affected 4.5 million people, resulting in 9,916 deaths, 90,014 injuries, and $1.8 billion losses. These exceptional temperatures threaten the Earth's basic ecosystem services: fisheries, coral reefs, and CO2-absorbing rainforests. Analysis based on a new very high-resolution data set identifies very large increases in the number of people exposed to very warm heat waves. Between 2000 and 2016, the number of heat wave exposure events has increased by approximately 15 billion people-days. Climate change projections for 2050 indicate further increases of ~70 billion. A sidebar describes a climate attribution study on Hyderabad, India, in 2015.

Our Blue Marble's unique temperature range supports water in all its three glorious phases (solid, liquid, gas). Phase transitions between liquid water and water vapor involve tremendous amounts of energy, and this energy helps fuel hurricanes. Sweeping across warm waters, winds can gather water from a vast stretch, sometimes to catastrophic effect. For example, Hurricane Harvey pummeled Houston with 9 trillion gallons of water, releasing about 76 x 1018 Joules of energy. Harvey was joined by Mathew, Maria, Irma, Florence, Michael, Dorian, and Imelda. According to NOAA data, in 2015–2019, extreme hurricanes caused $315 billion in damages. Between 2000 and 2019, these extremes caused $746 billion in damages. Climate change attribution for cyclones is difficult, given their complexity and rarity. A summary of a recent World Meteorological Organization study introduces event “detection” and “attribution,” as well as the new “storyline” approach to event attribution. Like an autopsy, storyline attribution can indicate whether climate change was one probable cause of an extreme event. From this perspective, climate change has likely contributed to the increased frequency and intensity of exceptionally strong hurricanes. The chapter concludes by discussing two important storyline attribution studies focused on very strong Atlantic hurricanes.

Linking a warming atmosphere, droughts, and more extreme precipitation is our thin, thin atmosphere. If the Earth were a basketball, the atmosphere would be 0.03-inch or 0.8-mm thick, literally whisker deep. The amount of water vapor contained in this air is strongly controlled by temperature. Warmer air holds more atmospheric water vapor, resulting in more extreme precipitation. Rainfall observations indicate that global precipitation extremes have already increased by more than 8 percent. If the observed trend continues, a similar-magnitude increase is likely over the next thirty years. This is very concerning, because extreme precipitation events are already extremely dangerous and costly. Between 1998 and 2017, floods, storms, and hurricanes affected more people than any other type of disaster, impacting 2.7 billion people overall resulting in $1.99 trillion of recorded economic losses. 2015–2019 disaster data suggests that the most dangerous non-cyclone storms affected 223 million people, led to more than 9,000 deaths, and resulted in $80 billion in damages. There is solid observational and model-based evidence supporting the link between a warming atmosphere and more intense precipitation extremes, and clear evidence that these extremes are having deadly and costly impacts today.

This chapter introduces two different approaches to understanding disasters. The 'hazard' paradigm, identified in chapter one as influencing the 'dominant view' regarding the application of the refugee definition in the context of disasters and climate change, is described as being characterised by a focus on hazards such as cyclones and earthquakes, with limited attention paid to the role of social factors in the unfolding of a disaster. The 'social' paradigm is then presented as providing a richer theoretical lens owing to its recognition of social factors as key elements in any disaster. The role played by discrimination in contributing to differential exposure and vulnerability to disaster-related harm is highlighted, and the relevance of this paradigm for guiding refugee status determination in the context of disasters and climate change is underscored.