LONDON, August 22 (AlertNet) -- Climate change threatens to reverse progress in reducing deaths from disasters and sharply increase the number of people affected by droughts, floods and cyclones, a U.N.-backed study said on Friday.

India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Indonesia are among countries that are particularly vulnerable to the more extreme weather scientists predict in coming decades, according to the report commissioned by the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and relief agency CARE International.

"Leaders and communities in these pivotal states and in other states at risk in the Sahel, Horn of Africa and in Southeast Asia are already facing enormous political, social, demographic, economic and security challenges," said Charles Ehrhart, CARE's climate change coordinator and one of the report's authors. "Climate change will greatly complicate and could undermine efforts to manage these challenges."

The study maps hazards associated with climate change, focusing on floods, cyclones and droughts, to identify the most likely humanitarian consequences of climate change over the next 20 to 30 years.

It says the intensity, frequency, duration and extent of weather-related hazards will increase, although their location is unlikely to change much. But a bigger problem is likely to be vulnerable people's decreasing capacity to cope with disasters, the report says.

It points to a growing gap between countries that have invested in preparing for disasters, like Bangladesh, and others that have yet to start, like Myanmar, which was devastated by Cyclone Nargis in May.

Bangladesh has made great strides in cutting deaths caused by extreme weather, through measures like building evacuation shelters along its coastline. More than 4,200 people died when Cyclone Sidr hit last November, but in the past similar storms killed hundreds of thousands.

The report identifies areas with the highest levels of human vulnerability to hazards in three regions. In Africa, the hotspots are the Sahel, Horn of Africa and Central Africa. In Central and South Asia, it singles out Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and the Caspian region; and in Southeast Asia, Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia and Indonesia.

The report calls on policy makers to boost the resilience of populations in these climate change hotspots, including by improving services like health and education. And it urges the aid community to become more flexible in responding to new and increased disaster risks arising from climate change.

"We must avoid relying exclusively on quick fixes like food aid that are necessary but do not address the underlying causes of the emergency and, most importantly, we ought to help people get back on their feet as soon as possible after the disaster has been tackled," CARE secretary general Robert Glasser said in a statement.

You can download a copy of the full report at www.careclimatechange.org

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