Retreat of the snowcapped volcano of Santa Isabel, Colombia

The extreme climate events show that there is a strong correlation (most likely non-linear) between greenhouse gas emissions, temperature increases, increased intensity of hurricanes and the rise in sea levels (IPCC, 2007a and Stern, 2007). For example, in Mesoamerica and the Caribbean sub-region, there were 36 hurricanes between 2000 and 2009, as against 15 and 9 per year in the 1980s and 1990s, respectively (figure 1.9). Moreover, during the last 100 years, 4 of the 12 years with the highest number of hurricanes making landfall occurred in the last decade. Nevertheless, the long-term pattern is a fluctuating one, suggesting that there is a major element of uncertainty involved.

1959 1966 1987 1991 1995 2002

outcrops Rock

Source: Ceballo, J. L., et al., Fast shrinkage of tropical glaciers in Colombia, 2006.

Figure 1.8

Latin America and the Caribbean, in particular, has seen a recent increase in extreme climatic events, and with it a rise in the number of people affected. The number of storms between 2000 and 2009 increased by 12 compared to the period between 1970 and 1979. In this same time period, floods quadrupled. The number of people affected by extreme temperatures, forest fires, droughts, storms and floods grew from 5 million in the 1970s to more than 40 million in the most recent decade, both as a result of increased human settlement in the region and due to the increased vulnerability of costal zones

Hurricanes in Mesoamerica and the Caribbean, 1904-2009 Annual total number

10

6 7 8 9

5 4

1 3

2 0 1904 1910 Figure 1.9 12 1920 1930 1940 1950 Source: National Hurricane Center, NOAA, online database, accessed October 2010. 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2009