Counting the cost 2019: a year of climate breakdown

Extreme weather, fuelled by climate change, struck every corner of the globe in 2019. From Southern Africa to North America and from Australia and Asia to Europe, floods, storms and fires brought chaos and destruction. This report identifies 15 of the most destructive weather events of the year. All of the disasters caused damage of over US$1 billion, and four of them cost at least $10 billion. These figures are likely to be underestimates as they often show only insured losses and do not always take into account other financial costs, such as lost productivity and uninsured losses. By no means do the financial figures show the whole picture – or even the most important parts of it. The report also provides estimates for the numbers of people killed in each event. The overwhelming majority of the deaths were caused by just two events, in India and southern Africa - a reflection of how the world’s poorest people pay the heaviest price for the consequences of climate change. In contrast, the financial cost was greatest in richer countries: Japan and the US suffered three of the four most costly events. Each of the disasters in the report has a link with climate change. In some cases, scientists have identified the physical mechanism by which climate change influenced the particular event or calculated the extent of its relationship with human-caused warming. In others, the events are consistent with what scientists have warned will happen as the planet warms. The extremes in this report occurred on a planet that is hotter than anything humans have ever experienced, and it’s going to get worse, due to committed warming from existing emissions. 2019 was around 1°C hotter than the pre-industrial average and is likely to have been the second-hottest year on record. But unless urgent action is taken to reduce emissions, global temperatures will rise at least another 0.5°C over the next 20 years, and another 2-3°C by the end of the century. 2019 was not the new normal. The world’s weather will continue to become ever-more extreme and people around the world will continue to pay the price. The challenge ahead is to minimize the impacts through deep and rapid emissions cuts.