Climate change costing $billions, charity reports
Fifteen of the natural disasters and extreme weather events during 2019 that resulted in damages of more than $1 billion were fuelled by climate change, Christian Aid found in a new report released Friday.
These disasters killed and injured thousands of people around the world and ranged in damage costs from over one to 25 billion dollars. Counting the Cost 2019: a year of climate breakdown identifies 15 of the most destructive droughts, floods, fires, typhoons and cyclones last year.
However, the authors of the report believe their findings are likely to have underestimated the true costs as in some cases they include only insured losses and do not take into account the costs of lost productivity and uninsured losses. In addition, the climate fuelled wildfires in Australia were not included because figures on how much the ongoing fires are costing the country have not yet been collated.
The most costly disaster identified in the report was wildfire damage in California, amounting to around $25 billion, followed by Typhoon Hagibis in Japan, which is estimated to have cost over $15 billion, and floods in the American Midwest and China, both of which exceeded $12 billion in damages. The events with the greatest loss of life were floods in Northern India, which killed 1,900, and Cyclone Idai, which killed 1,300 in Southern Africa.
The key message in the report is that these billion-dollar disasters are linked with human-caused climate change. In some cases scientific studies have shown that a particular event was more likely or stronger because of the changing climate and shifts in weather patterns.
While the report focuses on the financial cost of extreme weather events driven by climate change in many developing countries, the human cost of climate change to vulnerable communities is even higher than the financial cost, according to the charity which focuses on poverty. It further noted that there are many slow-onset droughts, weather change and sea encroachment that are also progressively and devastatingly impacting millions of people worldwide.
“2020 is going to be a huge year for how the world responds to the growing climate crisis,” said Dr Kat Kramer, Christian Aid’s Global Climate Lead and co-author of the report.
“We have the biggest summit since the Paris agreement was signed five years ago taking place in Glasgow, where countries must commit to further cut their emissions in line with the 1.5°C temperature rise limit, and boost funding for poor countries suffering from the kind of impacts seen in this report.”
But she warned that last year emissions continued to rise.
“It’s essential that nations prepare these new and enhanced pledges for action to the Paris agreement as soon as possible. That will ensure the world responds urgently to the warnings of scientists, as well as the demands from school children around the globe who are horrified at the kind of world they are being forced to inherit,” Kramer added.
However, the authors of the report believe their findings are likely to have underestimated the true costs as in some cases they include only insured losses and do not take into account the costs of lost productivity and uninsured losses. In addition, the climate fuelled wildfires in Australia were not included because figures on how much the ongoing fires are costing the country have not yet been collated.
The most costly disaster identified in the report was wildfire damage in California, amounting to around $25 billion, followed by Typhoon Hagibis in Japan, which is estimated to have cost over $15 billion, and floods in the American Midwest and China, both of which exceeded $12 billion in damages. The events with the greatest loss of life were floods in Northern India, which killed 1,900, and Cyclone Idai, which killed 1,300 in Southern Africa.
The key message in the report is that these billion-dollar disasters are linked with human-caused climate change. In some cases scientific studies have shown that a particular event was more likely or stronger because of the changing climate and shifts in weather patterns.
While the report focuses on the financial cost of extreme weather events driven by climate change in many developing countries, the human cost of climate change to vulnerable communities is even higher than the financial cost, according to the charity which focuses on poverty. It further noted that there are many slow-onset droughts, weather change and sea encroachment that are also progressively and devastatingly impacting millions of people worldwide.
“2020 is going to be a huge year for how the world responds to the growing climate crisis,” said Dr Kat Kramer, Christian Aid’s Global Climate Lead and co-author of the report.
“We have the biggest summit since the Paris agreement was signed five years ago taking place in Glasgow, where countries must commit to further cut their emissions in line with the 1.5°C temperature rise limit, and boost funding for poor countries suffering from the kind of impacts seen in this report.”
But she warned that last year emissions continued to rise.
“It’s essential that nations prepare these new and enhanced pledges for action to the Paris agreement as soon as possible. That will ensure the world responds urgently to the warnings of scientists, as well as the demands from school children around the globe who are horrified at the kind of world they are being forced to inherit,” Kramer added.
