Each of the ten costliest extreme events last year was influenced by the climate crisis, and each caused more than 4 billion US dollars in loss and damage, the report detailed while examining these extreme events that caused massive human and environmental damage, more particularly in the poorest countries in the Global South.
By Salam Rajesh
The world was poorer by several billion dollars last year as climate disasters rocked the blue planet time and again without respite, says a new report of the climate watch group Christian Aid released on Monday, strengthening the sense of pessimism in the New Year and the days ahead.
Ten extreme climate disasters hit Earth in 2024, costing exceedingly to the global exchequer, the report informed citing several instances like when Hurricane Milton struck the United States in October, incurring huge cost in loss and damage to the tune of 60 billion US dollars.
Each of the ten costliest extreme events last year was influenced by the climate crisis, and each caused more than 4 billion US dollars in loss and damage, the report detailed while examining these extreme events that caused massive human and environmental damage, more particularly in the poorest countries in the Global South.
Christian Aid’s bad-news sounding report, ‘Counting the Cost 2024: A Year of Climate Breakdown’, identifies ten expensive climate disasters last year. The estimates are based on insured losses, meaning the true financial costs are likely to be even higher, while the human costs are often unaccounted for.
In terms of the extreme weather events that caused the biggest financial cost in 2024, the US bore the brunt with October’s Hurricane Milton topping the list as the single biggest one-off event at a staggering cost of 60 billion US dollars in loss and damage, and killing 25 people. Hurricane Helene which struck the US, Cuba and Mexico in September earlier was next in the list with a damage cost at 55 billion US dollars, and with 232 lives lost.
No part of the world was spared from the crippling climate disasters in the preceding year, with floods in China costing 15.6 billion US dollars in loss and damage, killing 315 people, and the super-Typhoon Yagi which battered southwest Asia, killing more than 800 people. Yagi made landfall on 2nd September in the Philippines, before moving on to Laos, Myanmar, Vietnam and Thailand, where it triggered landslides, flash floods and damaging hundreds of homes and agricultural land.
Davide Faranda, Research Director in Climate Physics at the Institute Pierre Simon Laplace in France has this to say: “The report indicates how climate change is having an unbearable cost on peoples’ lives. Last year, extreme weather events killed thousands across the world and brought massive damage to our cities and natural ecosystems. Yet, we can stop and reverse this tendency, by stopping burning of fossil fuels”.
World Weather Attribution researcher at Imperial College London, Dr Mariam Zachariah shares a similar thought. “The report is a snapshot of climate disasters in 2024. Droughts, heat waves, wildfires, and floods are becoming more frequent and intense. Most of these disasters show clear fingerprints of climate change. Reducing our use of coal, oil and gas, the same fossil fuels that are intensifying these events, is an important step to mitigate the damages”.
In this chaotic scenario, Europe accounted for three of the top ten costliest disasters. The impact of storm Boris in central Europe, and floods in Spain and Germany cost around 13.87 billion US dollars in loss and damage, and killing 258 people, 226 of which were in Valencia’s floods in October.
Brazil, which is going to host COP30 climate summit in 2025, experienced massive floods in Rio Grande do Sul, killing 183 people and causing a high cost of 5 billion US dollars in loss and damage. United Kingdom’s Environment Agency warned that a quarter of properties in England could be at risk of flooding by 2050 due to climate change.
Joanna Haigh, Emeritus Professor of Atmospheric Physics, Imperial College London, observed that the report is a sobering reminder that climate change cannot be ignored and in fact will get much worse until nations do something to stop it. “Politicians who downplay the urgency of the climate crisis only serve to harm their own people. The economic impact of these extreme weather events should be a wake-up call. The good news is that the ever worsening crises do not have to be our long-term future. The technologies of a clean energy economy exist, but we need leaders to invest in them and roll them out at scale”, Haigh said.
Developing and underdeveloped nations, that have contributed little to causing the climate crisis and have the least resources to respond, have borne the brunt of these crises. For instance, cyclone Chido devastated the islands of Mayotte in December, possibly killing more than a thousand people.
An extended drought in Colombia saw the Amazon River drop by around 90 percent, threatening the livelihoods of Indigenous people who rely on this majestic river for their food and transport.
Heat waves affected 33 million people in Bangladesh, while worsening the humanitarian crisis in Gaza which is already in the grip of armed conflict currently. West Africa was hit with massive floods that affected more than 6.6 million people in Nigeria, Chad and Niger. In Southern Africa, the worst drought in living memory affected more than 14 million people in Zambia, Malawi, Namibia and Zimbabwe, the report stated.
“The transition to a global economy powered by renewable sources is inevitable, but the question is whether it will move fast enough to protect the poorest of the poor. At the moment, the answer to that is ‘No’. Rich countries must provide the funding needed to help the poorest communities adapt to climate impacts they have done little to cause”, Christian Aid’s CEO, Patrick Watt observed.
“The scientific evidence of the lethal toll that burning fossil fuel is taking on people and planet is incontrovertible. This (2024) will likely be the hottest year ever recorded, breaking last year’s previous record. These terrible climate disasters are a warning sign of what is to come if we do not accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels”, Watt said.
Mohamed Adow, Director of Nairobi-based energy and climate think tank, Power Shift Africa, says: “The report gives a fair sense of the devastation that fossil fuels are causing our planet. In Africa we have seen millions suffering from floods in the west to the worst drought in living memory in the south. Africa may not have the biggest insured losses from climate disasters, but we suffer a terrible human toll in lives lost and livelihoods destroyed. The fact that we contribute less than 4 percent of global emissions but are bearing the brunt of the impacts, underlines why Africa needs financial support to deal with a climate crisis caused by the rich world”.
Patrick Watt sums up the general sentiment saying that the human suffering caused by climate crisis reflects political choices. “There is nothing natural about the growing severity and frequency of droughts, floods and storms. Disasters are being supercharged by decisions to keep burning fossil fuels, and to allow emissions to rise. In 2025 we need to see governments leading, and taking action to accelerate the green transition, reduce emissions, and fund their promises”.