Translated with AI
Natural disasters cost humanity 10 times more than previously estimated, according to a report by the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction published on Tuesday. The total damage is now estimated at $2.3 trillion a year, the press service of the Organization reports.
Previous estimates put the global economic losses from natural disasters – such as earthquakes, landslides and floods – at around $200 billion a year. But that is “only a small fraction of the damage,” according to Jenty Kirsch-Wood, head of global risk analysis and reporting at the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, and the real figure is closer to $2.3 trillion.
Speaking in Geneva on Friday, she told reporters that the world "chronically underestimates and under-measures the overall impact of disasters" on achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.
Catastrophic floods People born in 1990 have a 63 percent chance of surviving a catastrophic flood that used to happen once every 100 years. For a child born in 2025, that chance jumps to 86 percent.
“These events affect us all,” Kirsch-Wood said. The cost of extreme weather events is not just in destroyed infrastructure, but in lost years of health, education, and opportunity.
Consequences for humans Emergencies are increasingly affecting health, education and the labour market, leading to rising public debt and delayed recovery in already fragile countries, the UN official said. This in turn is causing social problems as countries increasingly face extreme climate events.
Financial losses from disasters have doubled in the last two decades, according to the UN. A new report offers recommendations on how the international community can work together to invest in sustainable development to reduce the impact of future disasters and reduce the burden on governments.
Most of the costs of climate disasters are preventable, Kirsch-Wood emphasizes. The challenge going forward is to “better align financial systems” and “attract public and private investment to optimally reduce the burden on governments.” The report offers just such solutions.
Millions of displaced people Between 2014 and 2023, nearly 240 million people were forced to flee their homes due to natural disasters. China and the Philippines each registered more than 40 million displaced people, while India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan registered between 10 million and 30 million.
The high “cost” of climate disasters and the associated debt falls most heavily on developing countries and vulnerable populations.
Who suffers first? In 2023, North American countries suffered $69.57 billion in direct disaster losses, more than any other region in the world. However, this was only 0.23 percent of their GDP. By comparison, the Federated States of Micronesia “only” lost $4.3 billion, but this was 46.1 percent of their GDP.
The report “shows the staggering costs of disasters, which hit the most vulnerable first… and demonstrates that on the current trajectory, the costs will only rise as the climate crisis worsens,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres. “But it also shows that by increasing investment in risk reduction and prevention, we can reverse this trend and reap economic benefits – saving lives, protecting jobs, promoting growth and prosperity, and advancing the Sustainable Development Goals.”
The role of the private sector Existing measures – such as early warning systems and flood protection – can help the hardest-hit countries cope with the rising costs of climate-related disasters.
Increased investment in risk reduction and resilience in the face of crises can reverse the current trend, says Kamal Kishore, the UN Secretary-General's Special Representative for Disaster Risk Reduction and head of the Office.
“When coastal communities have access to scientific tools for land-use planning, when they have the resources to build defences and early warning systems, they not only reduce damage and losses from floods, but also create the conditions for prosperity and sustainable development,” he said.
The report's authors stress that the private sector can also play a more active role in closing the protection gaps that are leaving many countries "deeper into a spiral of recurring disasters."
