Rising Sea Levels, Drought, Hurricanes and Deforestation Threaten Latin America and the Caribbean

Coastal view from the Kalinago Territory in Dominica. Credit: Alison Kentish/IPSBy Alison KentishUNITED NATIONS, Jul 26 2022 (IPS) The highest deforestation rates since 2009. The third most active hurricane season on record. Extreme rainfall, floods, and landslides displaced tens of thousands of people. Rising sea levels. Glaciers in Peru lost more than half their size. Add the devastating impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic to the mix, and 2021 was a challenging year for Latin America and the Caribbean. That’s according to the World Meteorological Organization’s State of the Climate in Latin America and the Caribbean 2021 report, published on July 22. It is the United Nations weather agency’s second annual report. It states that “sea levels in the region continued to rise in 2021 at a faster rate than globally, notably along the Atlantic coast of South America south of the equator, and the subtropical North Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico,” a worrying development for the small island states of the Caribbean and large populations concentrated in coastal communities. The 2021 Atlantic hurricane season brought 21 named storms that included seven hurricanes and was the sixth consecutive above-average season. It adds that extreme rainfall led to tens of thousands of homes being destroyed or damaged and hundreds of thousands of people displaced The record-setting drought in Chile continued in 2021, marking the 13th consecutive year of the “Central Chile Mega-drought,” which...
Source: IPS Inter Press Service - Health - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Tags: Biodiversity Climate Action Climate Change COVID-19 Editors' Choice Environment Featured Headlines Latin America & the Caribbean Sustainable Development Goals TerraViva United Nations IPS UN Bureau IPS UN Bureau Report Source Type: news