Postcards from Atlantis: Territories and Cultures at Risk from Climate

Every adult Muslim, provided they are in good health and economic conditions, is required to make the Hajj once in their lifetime, the pilgrimage to Mecca to be performed from the eighth to the twelfth or thirteenth day of Dhu al-Hijjah, the last month of the Islamic calendar. Every year, approximately two million people are involved. There have been several occasions in which accidents or clashes have caused hundreds of deaths.

This year, climate change was the main cause of the disaster, with approximately 1,300 deaths linked to temperatures that, in Mecca, exceeded 50 degrees. Extreme temperatures, desertification, but also violent climatic events are making many territories uninhabitable. The data concerns the Horn of Africa as well as various Asian regions, but European cities also see the most fragile population exposed to devastating consequences in terms of health.
The ten most affected countries

Somalia, China, the Philippines, Pakistan, Kenya, Ethiopia, India, Brazil, Bangladesh and Malaysia: these are the ten countries most affected in the world by the climate crisis. Here, floods and droughts continue to alternate rapidly: 24 events were recorded in 2013; 656 in 2023. The numbers indicate that the situation is worsening. Ten years ago, Somalia was hit by two disasters a year: in 2023, there were 223. The Philippines went from 3 to 74; Brazil from 4 to 79; Malaysia from one to 127. In the last decade, the number of displaced people linked to extreme weather events has gone from 3.5 million to 7.9 million.

Floods or heat waves make territories unlivable both from a physical point of view (see in-depth analysis 2) and because they limit access to resources. In Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Kenya, Pakistan and Somalia, the number of people affected by malnutrition in the last decade has risen to 55 million. In 2013, there were 14 million. In Somalia, a prolonged drought, alternating with sudden cyclones and floods, has generated millions of dollars in losses, thousands of victims and millions of displaced people. Last December’s floods alone cost 230 million dollars, 1.2 million displaced people and 118 victims. In Bangladesh, the seventh most vulnerable nation to the climate crisis in the world, the disasters of 2023 have led to the displacement of 1.8 million people. Those left without crops or income have left; those who have not, live exposed to future catastrophes…