Christian Aid: Extreme weather has already caused over $41bn damage in 2024

Storm over Toronto, Canada. Photo by Johannes Plenio on Unsplash

Source: Christian Aid

Extreme weather has caused a minimum of $41 billion damage in the six months since the last major climate conference, according to a new report by international development charity Christian Aid. They say that not enough progress has been made since COP28 in the United Arab Emirates to move away from fossil fuels or to support lower-income countries to cope with climate disasters.

As the second week of climate talks in Bonn begins, these numbers show that the costs of the climate crisis are already here. Negotiators in Bonn are working to establish a 'Loss and Damage Fund', to try and unblock financial flows to lower-income countries hit by extreme weather. This funding was a major sticking point at COP28, with wealthier nations slow to agree to the investments needed.

"Rich countries, responsible for the lion's share of the greenhouse gases that are heating the atmosphere and fueling extreme events, should recognise their historic responsibility and step up their funding to the Loss and Damage Fund to help other countries cope and recover from extreme weather," says Christian Aid in the report.

The $41 billion in damage is an underestimate according to the charity. Only insured losses are typically reported, and many of the worst disasters have hit countries where few people or businesses have insurance. The human cost of disasters is also missed in these figures, from those who lost their lives to those whose homes are destroyed, or who lose out on work or education.

The report shines a spotlight on four extreme weather events that have happened since the last major international climate talks, all four of which have been scientifically linked to climate change.

- Floods in Brazil which killed at least 169 people and did at least $7 billion damage to the economy were made twice as likely by climate change.

- In south and southwest Asia, flooding which killed at least 214 people and did $850 million in insured damages in the UAE alone was also made more likely by climate change.

- Simultaneous heat waves in west, south, and southeast Asia killed over 1,500 people in Myanmar alone, with heat deaths notoriously under-reported. The heatwave is expected to slow growth and increase inflation, and in southeast Asia it would have been completely impossible without climate change while in south and west Asia it was made five and 45 times more likely, respectively, and also hotter.

- Flooding from cyclones in east Africa killed 559 people, and was made about twice as likely and also more intense by the climate change.

These extreme events hit two of the three climate 'troika' countries - UAE, which hosted the climate COP last year and Brazil, which will host it in 2025. This underlines the urgency of the escalating crisis, with climate change fuelled disasters causing devastation before and after climate talks are held in those same countries.

The report explains how climate change is already affecting life at all scales. These floods and heat waves disrupted children's education, making it harder for many to break out of poverty. They did massive damage to crops and livestock, fuelling food insecurity in some places and price inflation in others. Extreme heat and floods compounded existing crises for refugees and those living with conflict, and even impacted the world's biggest democratic occasion as many Indians struggled to vote in dangerous temperatures.

Christian Aid says the solutions to the crisis are clear: governments and development banks must stop new investments in the oil, coal and gas that are fuelling these disasters, and massively scale up decentralised renewable energy to support clean development.

"We cannot heal the burns caused by the climate crisis while we are still throwing fossil fuels on the fire", said Mariana Paoli, Christian Aid's Global Advocacy Lead, who is from Brazil. "We need rich countries who are largely responsible for causing the climate crisis to massively scale up funding for action on climate change. They need to show real creativity and political will, and tax polluters and the super-rich in order to finance real climate action. We need to cancel historic debt owed to rich countries by poor ones, and instead make sure that that money is used to improve climate equality, to help everyone to be safer from climate disasters."

Davide Faranda, researcher at the Institut Pierre-Simon Laplace (Paris) said: "In 2024, global warming caused by human-caused carbon emissions has reached the 1.5°C temperature threshold identified in the Paris agreement. This planetary fever is causing widespread heatwaves, droughts, cyclones and floods which can be directly attributed to human greenhouse gases emissions and that are causing enormous human and economic damages.

"In our research consortium ClimaMeter, which produces rapid attribution reports, we have shown that climate change is fueling many of the costly extreme weather events that disproportionately affect vulnerable populations with limited adaptation capabilities. We have limited time to act and reduce carbon emissions to prevent irreversible consequences on humans and ecosystems"

Nushrat Chowdhury, Climate Justice Advisor at Christian Aid in Bangladesh, said: "Last week my country of Bangladesh was struck by Cyclone Remal, killing people and wrecking livelihoods. More than 150,000 homes have been damaged or destroyed. This is the kind of climate chaos we've been experiencing this year, and I worry it will only get worse until the world begins to cut its carbon emissions. The people of Bangladesh are not responsible for this disaster yet they are faced with huge losses. That is why it's so important the Loss and Damage Fund gets proper funding so that people can receive support to rebuild their lives and livelihoods after such awful cyclones."

Mohamed Adow, Director of Nairobi-based energy and climate think tank Power Shift Africa, said: "Already Africa is bearing the brunt of the climate crisis this year with terrible floods and landslides killing hundreds and displacing hundreds of thousands. The death of 12,000 livestock and destruction of thousands of acres of crops in my country of Kenya alone is devastating to people's lives and ability to feed their families. It just shows the injustice of the climate crisis. Kenya has tiny historic emissions and already more than 90% of its electricity mix is renewable. Yet we continue to suffer from climate breakdown. That is why it is essential the global north mobilises climate finance for adaptation and the Loss and Damage Fund. That money is the difference between life and death for so many people."

Fiona Nunan, Professor of Environment and Development, University of Birmingham, said: "This year we've seen communities across the world struck by cyclones, inundated with flooding and baked by terrible heatwaves. The economic and social harm they have caused is clearly huge. This extreme weather is to be expected unless the world takes urgent action on rising greenhouse gas emissions. These events highlight the need for much more adaption finance to help ensure communities are better prepared and more resilient to these kinds of shocks."

Professor Joanna Haigh, former Co-Director of the Grantham Institute at Imperial College, London, said: "Climate change is clearly having a hugely harmful impact around the world this year. Not all of these extreme weather events might be making headline news but added together they paint a stark picture of the suffering being caused by the climate crisis. These storms, floods and heatwaves will only get worse if we don't reduce our emissions urgently. The good news is there is a lot that governments can do to accelerate the energy transition away from fossil fuels to clean, low carbon renewables which will put us on a much safer path."

Professor Doreen Stabinsky, College of the Atlantic, Maine, said: "The impacts of the climate crisis continue to get worse for some of the world's most vulnerable people through record temperatures and costly extreme weather events, as we've already seen this year. Such costs will only get worse for people who have done the least to cause the climate emergency. Without financial support these communities will continue to suffer and it's why the lack of climate finance provided by historically polluting nations is such a huge issue. The need for high emitting countries to rapidly transition away from fossil fuels has never been clearer."