A NEW study commissioned by Christian Aid suggests that the cost of climate breakdown is unevenly spread around the globe, taking account of economic inequality and the vulnerability of certain regions to natural disasters. The report, Counting the Cost, was published on Wednesday, and concludes that the Hawaiian wildfires had the highest per-capita cost of all climate-change related disasters in 2023, at more than $4000 per occupant of the affected area (News, 18 August). The next costliest disaster from a financial perspective was Typhoon Mawar, which hit Guam in May, at a cost of almost $1500 per person. The report highlights the aggregate effect of the costs of the disasters by identifying the value of the damage by percentage of GDP. The disasters analysed by Christian Aid have all been causally linked to climate change, and so exclude the earthquakes which caused devastation in Morocco, Turkey, and Syria (News, 5 May).

Source: The Times December 27, 2023 12:50 UTC