Climate disasters costing billions

Extreme weather, driven by climate change, hit every populated continent in 2019, killing, injuring and displacing millions and causing billions of dollars of economic damage, according to a new report.

The report by charity Christian Aid identifies 15 of the most destructive droughts, floods, fires, typhoons and cyclones of 2019, each of which caused damage of over $1 billion (£760 million). Seven of the events cost more than $10 billion each. These figures are likely to be underestimates - in some cases they include only insured losses and do not take into account the costs of lost productivity and uninsured losses.

Sally Foster-fulton, Head of Christian Aid Scotland, said: “In the year that Scotland signed one of the world’s most ambitious climate change acts, this report is a stark reminder about the urgency of climate action.

“In countries such as Mozambique which suffered a great loss of life as well as financial cost when Cyclone Idai hit in March, we must remember, as Glasgow prepares to host COP26, that it is the poorest countries, the ones that have done the least to cause climate change, are the ones suffering the most”.

The most financially costly disasters were wildfires in California, which caused $25 billion in damage, followed by Typhoon Hagibis in Japan ($15bn) and floods in the American mid-west ($12.5bn) and China ($12bn). The events with the greatest loss of life were floods in Northern India which killed 1,900 and Cyclone Idai which killed 1,300.