BANGKOK, Sept 18 (AlertNet) - Governments must invest billions of dollars in preparing for disasters rather than spending aid cash on responding to emergencies, development agency World Vision said in a report released on Thursday.

It warns that tens of millions of people in the Asia Pacific region are in danger from rising sea levels and climate change-related disasters, which are predicted to become more frequent, severe and costly.

Only 4 percent of the estimated $10 billion allocated to humanitarian assistance each year goes on reducing the risk of disasters, according to the report, Planet Prepare, which highlights the vulnerability of Asia Pacific's coastal communities to future disasters and climate change.

"No one would invest their money on the stock market on those terms," Johannes Luetz, the report's lead author, told reporters in Bangkok. "They want to invest where it's going to yield great returns, and there are no greater returns than being one step ahead of the next disaster."

"There are economic benefits in preparedness," said Richard Rumsey, the organisation's regional emergency director. "There is evidence that for every dollar spent on disaster prevention, between $4 and $7 can be saved in reconstruction costs."

Between 1990 and 2007, over 3.5 billion people were affected by natural disasters in Asia, which caused damage worth around $620 billion, the report says.

It is difficult to put an exact figure on how much it will cost the world to deal with the harmful consequences of climate change, but most estimates run into billions of dollars.

Oxfam says developing countries need at least $50 billion each year to adapt to a warmer world, and the United Nations has called for around $86 billion in new financing by 2015 to help the world's poor cope with climate change.

But so far funds from governments and a levy on U.N.-regulated carbon trading amount to a fraction of what aid agencies say is needed.

World Vision is urging Asian governments not to depend on international handouts after emergencies hit, but to take pre-emptive action to preserve development gains and avert the threat of hardship for millions from climate-related disasters and rising sea levels.

The charity says money should be spent on strengthening community resilience in villages and cities, educating children to be ready for disasters, putting in place protective infrastructure and early warning systems, and giving people new job options.

"I think the international donor community has a responsibility to almost guide the process and say 'Our response budgets are very closely linked to your investment in this pre-disaster preparedness'," Rumsey said.

The report argues that it also makes economic sense for rich country governments to invest in adaptation measures because ultimately climate-induced disasters have a domino effect.

"India's rains are Bangladesh's floods - Bangladesh's climate refugees will be India's migrants - China's coal-fired power stations will fuel America's hurricanes - America's fuel-inefficient cars will ratchet up China's floods," it said.

Besides making an economic case for disaster preparedness, the report also examines how communities from Bangladesh to Papua New Guinea are being impacted by storms and rising seas.

It tells the stories of people like Abdul Mannan, a Bangladeshi community leader. Standing on the receding shoreline of the island of Bhola, dressed in white and with a long, white beard, he talks of how his birthplace now lies 5 km out to sea.

In Myanmar's Irrawaddy delta region, seven-year-old Nway dreams of becoming a doctor when she grows up. But May's Cyclone Nargis has blunted her hopes. Not only did she lose her parents and three siblings in the storm, but all that remains of her beloved school - once surrounded by lush paddy fields - is a pile of rubble.

World Vision says the devastation caused by the storm is a "curtain raiser" for the chaos global warming will bring.

"I hope that our report can put a face to climate change, that it's not just data," said Luetz, who travelled to costal communities and spoke to people whose lives are being affected.

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