UN Secretary-General sees impact of ‘Category Hell’ hurricane in the Bahamas, ‘powered by climate change’

The UN chief saw for himself the deadly power of Hurricane Dorian on the shattered islands of Abaco and Grand Bahama describing it as more like a “Category Hell” disaster, than the official Category 5 designation used by meteorologists.

Dorian was “Category Hell”, said Secretary-General António Guterres, “but he was not powered by a devil. We have always had many hurricanes, but now they are more intense and more frequent, and they are powered by climate change.”

He said it was key for the international community to learn two things from the monster storm which struck on 1 September, killing at least 50 people, while around 1,300 are still reported missing:

“We need to stop climate change, we need to make sure that we reverse the present trend when climate change is running faster than we are, and second, that countries like The Bahamas that do not contribute to climate change – but are in the first line of the devastating impacts of climate change – deserve international support, to be able to fully respond to the humanitarian emergency, but also for the reconstruction and the building resilience of the communities on the islands.”

Thanking all of the search and rescue workers from nations far and wide, international NGOs and UN agencies on the ground, he said that the destruction he had witnessed was “a demonstration of how dramatic natural disasters are becoming, increasing in intensity and in frequency and how vulnerable countries like the Bahamas are in relation to these natural disasters.”

“It is clear that this acceleration is very much linked to human activity, triggering climate change and of course the Bahamas are not contributing much to climate change…So this solidarity is absolutely essential, and the international community needs to be able to express it very strongly.”

Original source: UN News
Published on 14 September 2019