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What Were the Most Expensive Climate Disasters of 2024?
"The human suffering caused by the climate crisis reflects political choices. There is nothing natural about the growing severity and frequency of droughts, floods and storms," said the CEO of Christian Aid.
Dec 30, 2024
Climate disasters aren't cheap. In 2024, the 10 costliest extreme weather events not only extracted a toll in the form of human lives, but also each cost over $4 billion in economic damages—and some much more—according to a report released Monday from the global group Christian Aid.
"The human suffering caused by the climate crisis reflects political choices. There is nothing natural about the growing severity and frequency of droughts, floods and storms," said Christian Aid CEO Patrick Watt in a statement Monday.
"Disasters are being supercharged by decisions to keep burning fossil fuels, and to allow emissions to rise. And they're being made worse by the consistent failure to deliver on financial commitments to the poorest and most climate-vulnerable countries," he continued.
According to the report, the costliest climate disasters in terms of economic cost this year, in ascending order, were: Valencia floods in Spain; Bavaria floods in Germany; Rio Grande do Sul floods in Brazil; Storm Boris in Central Europe; Hurricane Beryl in the U.S., Mexico, and Caribbean islands; Typhoon Yagi in Southwest Asia; China floods in China; Hurricane Helene in the U.S., Mexico, and Cuba; Hurricane Milton in the U.S.; and U.S. storms in the United States.
Two items on the list—"China floods" and "U.S. storms"—are not a single event. The China floods refer to flood events across China that happened in June and July, and U.S. storms are all storms classified by the global professional services firm Aon as "severe convective storm" for the period between January and September, according to the report.
These U.S. storms, the most expensive climate disaster of 2024, amounted to over $60 billion in economic costs and 88 deaths, per the report. The second costliest, Hurricane Milton, caused 25 deaths and $60 billion in economic losses.
Hurricane Milton, which made landfall in Florida, was made worse by fossil fuel emissions: "In a world without climate change, Hurricane Milton would have made landfall as a Category 2 storm. Instead, it struck as a Category 3 hurricane, with stronger winds and more intense rainfall, causing extensive tornado activity, and damaging infrastructure in regions still recovering from previous hurricanes."
Specifically, "a rapid analysis by Climate Central showed that the unusually warm ocean temperatures, which fueled the hurricane's rapid intensification, were made 400-800 times more likely by climate change over the two weeks preceding the storm," according to the report.
The report's authors also caveat that the losses tallied in the document are likely an undercount. Most of the costs estimates are based on insured losses, meaning that the true financial costs are likely to be even higher (for example, it does not include economic costs stemming from crop production losses). Human costs are also often undercounted, the report's authors state.
Another important piece of context is that economic costs are generally higher in absolute terms for richer countries because the value of infrastructure and private property tends to be higher, living costs are greater, and more is covered by insurance—meaning losses are more calculable in financial terms, per the report. However, the death toll tends to be higher in poorer countries.
The deadliest climate disaster, according to the report, was Typhoon Yagi, which came in as the fifth most expensive climate disaster in terms of economic cost, and caused the deaths of over 829 people. The typhoon struck multiple countries in southeast Asia, causing landslides, flooding, and infrastructure damage in places including the Philippines, Laos, Vietnam, Myanmar, and Thailand. In Myanmar, for example, it devastated entire villages and decimated over 2.3 million hectares of agricultural land.
In its Monday statement, Christian Aid highlighted that "some of the most devastating extreme weather events in 2024 hit poorer nations, which have contributed little to causing the climate crisis and have the least resources to respond."
To that end, the group is calling on Global North countries to increase their commitment to climate finance and cease development of new fossil fuel projects.
The report also includes additional information about disasters that didn't make it into the top ten for economic damages, but are still of note. They include a drought that impacted countries in southern Africa between February and July and floods impacting Afghanistan and Pakistan between March and September.
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'Love Wins': Thailand Set to Be First Southeast Asian Nation to Legalize Same-Sex Marriage
"While there is no doubt that the legalization of marriage for LGBTI couples is a key milestone for Thailand, much more must be done to guarantee full protection," said one campaigner.
Jun 18, 2024
LGBTQ+ advocates around the world on Tuesday cheered the Thai Senate's passage of a bill legalizing same-sex marriage, a move that—if approved by the country's king as expected—would make Thailand the first country in Southeast Asia to do so.
The Bangkok Postreported Thai senators voted 130-4, with 18 abstentions, in favor of a bill to legalize same-sex marriages in the country of 72 million people. The Thai House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved the legislation in March. The legislation would become law if it passes further review by the Senate and the Constitutional Court and is approved by King Rama X. Royal assent is a formality that will almost certainly be granted.
"The bill represents a monumental step forward for LGBTQ+ rights in Thailand," Panyaphon Phiphatkhunarnon, founder of the advocacy group Love Foundation, toldCNN.
Plaifa Kyoka Shodladd, an 18-year-old activist, toldThe New York Times that "after 20 years of trying to legalize this matter, finally, love wins."
In Asia, only Nepal and Taiwan have achieved same-sex marriage equality. Thailand would become the 39th nation to legalize same-sex marriage worldwide.
Legalization "would underscore Thailand's leadership in the region in promoting human rights and gender equality," said the Thai Civil Society Commission of Marriage Equality, Activists, and LGBTI+ Couples.
Amnesty International Thailand researcher Chanatip Tatiyakaroonwong said in a
statement: "Thailand has taken a historic step towards becoming the first country in Southeast Asia to legalize marriage for LGBTI couples. This landmark moment is a reward for the tireless work of activists, civil society organizations, and lawmakers who have fought for this victory."
"While there is no doubt that the legalization of marriage for LGBTI couples is a key milestone for Thailand, much more must be done to guarantee full protection of LGBTI people in the country," Chanatip continued. "LGBTI people in Thailand continue to face many forms of violence and discrimination, including but not limited to technology-facilitated gender-based violence, which often targets human rights defenders."
"Thai authorities must build on the momentum and take further steps that protect the rights and ensure the participation of LGBTI people and organizations," Chanatip added.
Thailand's imminent legalization of same-sex marriage equality stands in contrast with the hundreds of pieces of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation proposed or passed mostly in Republican-controlled state legislatures in the United States.
Advocates are also worried about the future of LGBTQ+ rights at the national level, as U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas suggested in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization—the ruling that erased half a century of federal abortion rights—that the high court could reconsider cases including Obergefell v. Hodges, which in 2015 legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.
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Indonesia's Deforestation-Fueled Wildfires May Be World's Worst Climate Crisis
Hundreds of thousands have fallen ill and at least 19 have died from fighting blazes and pollutant exposure
Oct 28, 2015
NASA scientists warned this week that a rash of wildfires in Indonesia and the resulting toxic haze of smoke and smog may be the worst climate crisis on Earth right now. Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla announced that the administration was considering declaring an emergency.
Forest fires on the island of Sumatra started in August as part of a "slash-and-burn" deforestation plan to clear land for palm oil plantations, but they have raged out of control for the past two months. They have sent thick plumes of smoke across the archipelago and much of southeast Asia, including Vietnam, Cambodia, and the Philippines.
Hundreds of thousands of people have reportedly fallen ill, and 19 have died--some from battling the fires and others from exposure to the fumes. The smoke has also disrupted public transportation and forced school cancellations.
"The problem is too big," Kalla said Tuesday, a day after President Joko Widodo cut short his first official visit to the U.S. to visit the affected areas.
Indonesia has used slash-and-burn tactics for decades. "Most burning starts on idle, already-cleared peatlands and escapes underground into an endless fuel source," explained David Gaveau of the Center for International Forestry Research.
Researchers with the World Resources Institute (WRI) wrote earlier this month:
The burning of tropical peatlands is so significant for greenhouse gas emissions because these areas store some of the highest quantities of carbon on Earth, accumulated over thousands of years. Draining and burning these lands for agricultural expansion (such as conversion to oil palm or pulpwood plantations) leads to huge spikes in greenhouse gas emissions. Fires also emit methane, a greenhouse gas 21 times more potent than carbon dioxide (CO2), but peat fires may emit up to 10 times more methane than fires occurring on other types of land. Taken together, the impact of peat fires on global warming may be more than 200 times greater than fires on other lands.
However, this year's particularly long dry season and the impacts of El Nino have exacerbated conditions and set the outbreak on track to be the worst environmental crisis on record.
"This is a crime against humanity of extraordinary proportions," said Sutopo Puro Nugroho, the spokesperson for the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG), who added that the number of health impacts may be much higher than reported.
Also at risk are orangutans, which have been left sick and malnourished by the thousands due to the haze, while the fires have turned their habitats into burned-out wastelands.
Indonesia has the world's highest rate of deforestation and is the fifth-highest greenhouse gas emitter. According to the WRI, land use, like palm oil plantations, makes up about 61 percent of the country's emissions. However, with forest fires reaching more than 1,500 hot spots in the archipelago this week, Indonesia sent out more greenhouse gases in the past few days than the U.S., the world's second-highest polluter, according to climate analysts.
The last time an Indonesian fire season caused record levels of air pollution was in 1997, when similar conditions caused a lack of rainfall, allowing the hot spots to burn out of control on a large scale.
"We are on a similar trajectory to other bad years," said Robert Field, a Columbia University scientist based at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies. "Conditions in Singapore and southeastern Sumatra are tracking close to 1997, with some stations having visibility less than 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) on average for a week. In Kalimantan, there have been reports of visibility less than 50 meters (165 feet)."
Luhut B. Pandjaitan, Indonesia's coordinating minister for political, legal, and security affairs, said heavy rainfall Tuesday night has helped temper the fires, reducing the number of hot spots from more than 1,500 on Monday to 291 on Wednesday. However, he added that much more rain is necessary to bring them under control.
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