Climate change linked to major disasters in 2019

At least 15 natural disasters that have occurred this year due to accelerating climate change have caused damage of over $1 billion (Dh3.67bn), a new report revealed on Friday.

Counting the Cost 2019: a year of climate breakdown, released by Christian Aid, looked into 15 of the most destructive droughts, floods, fires, typhoons and cyclones of 2019, each of which caused damage of over $1 billion.

All of these disasters were related to climate change, the UK charity said. Seven of the 15 events cost more than $10bn each, the report found.

The most expensive disaster was the damage caused by the California wildfires in October and November, which cost $25bn to control.

September and October saw Typhoons Faxai and Hagibis cause more than $20bn of damage in Japan as well as disrupt the Rugby World Cup which was being held there. May and June were particularly bad times for Asia, seeing $28bn in climate change-caused damage.

Cyclone Fani struck India and Bangladesh, parts of China experienced their highest rainfall for 60 years and in Northern India, a stronger than usual monsoon led to floods that killed 1,900 people. Christian Aid warned that these figures were likely to be underestimates, as in some cases they didn’t take into account uninsured losses and lost productivity.