A/HRC/37/30 result of disasters. Overall, more than 1.5 billion people have been affected by disasters. The total economic loss is more than $1.3 trillion.1 8. Each year, on average 42 million life years are lost in internationally reported disasters. That represents a serious setback to social and economic development, and to the progressive realization of economic, social and cultural rights. Economic losses from disasters, such as cyclones and flooding, are now estimated at between $250 billion and $300 billion. Future annual losses from disasters are estimated at $314 billion and expected to increase to $415 billion by 2030. 2 If the risks from disasters are not reduced and managed, and resilience strengthened, they will represent a significant opportunity cost, as these resources, equivalent of the gross domestic product of countries such as Denmark or Israel, could otherwise be invested for the realization of economic, social and cultural rights, in social protection and in health and education, and towards building resilient and sustainable societies. 9. Climate change threatens the full enjoyment of a wide range of human rights, including economic, social and cultural rights such as the rights to life, health, food, housing and water (see A/HRC/31/52 paras. 23–27). Climate change will exacerbate the challenges of improving access to safe drinking water — as of 2015, 2.1 billion people lacked safely managed drinking water services. 3 Climate change is also likely to reduce the availability of water in most dry subtropical regions and to increase the occurrence of droughts, severely affecting the livelihoods and the right to food of populations living in such areas. More broadly, climate change will jeopardize food security and therefore the sustainable and progressive realization of the right to food. Climate change without adaptation will have a negative impact on the production of major crops, such as wheat, rice and maize, in both tropical and temperate regions, and is already impairing the ability of some communities to feed themselves.4 10. Climate change is increasingly becoming one of the major causes of migration. Although migration is usually triggered by a variety of complex factors, climate change and associated impact on the livelihood has driven millions of people to move, not of their own free will, but out of the need to escape conditions in which they cannot meet their basic human rights. At a panel discussion on human rights, climate change, migrants and persons displaced across international borders, convened by the Human Rights Council on 6 October 2017, pursuant to Council resolution 35/20, participants called for preventive measures, such as improved early warning systems, disaster risk reduction and resiliencebuilding efforts, sustainable development and international cooperation, including on transboundary water, in order to reduce negative impacts on human rights resulting from climate change.5 B. Emerging risks of violence and conflict 11. The intensifying competition over dwindling natural resources, water, land and other elements that are crucial for an adequate standard of living and the denial of economic and social rights are increasingly at the centre of violence and social unrest. Violations of economic, social and cultural rights are closely linked to and often at the root of the emergence of violence, social unrest and conflict (E/2016/58). Financial and economic crises, often accompanied by rigid austerity measures, have also undermined economic, social and cultural rights and resulted in protests and social unrest. 1 2 3 4 5 United Nations Development Programme, Strengthening Disaster Risk Governance (2015). United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction (2015). World Health Organization and United Nations Children’s Fund, Progress on Drinking Water, Sanitation and Hygiene: 2017 Update and SDG Baselines. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability, part A, ch. 7. See A/HRC/37/35 (forthcoming). 3