Climate-related disasters cost the world $200bn
Nigerian Tribune, 08-01-2009
Financial damage caused by climate- related natural disasters made 2008 one of the most devastating years on record as costs associated with weather-related catastrophes are put at about $200bn in 2008. This amount is double the losses incurred in 2007.
Munich Re, the world’s biggest re-insurer and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Finance Initiative partner which gave the breakdown said insured losses of $45bn were 50 per cent more than in the previous year. Hurricane Ike cost insurers $15bn in the United States.
Climate extremes, including devastating floods, severe droughts, snow storms, heat waves and cold waves marked the year just as ice volume in the Arctic dropped to its second-lowest level.
Earlier in the year, Achim Steiner, UNEP Executive Director said, "The extreme weather events we are witnessing underline the increasing vulnerability of humankind to natural disasters; vulnerability that scientists predict will rise if climate change is left unchecked."
It is expected that the UN climate convention meeting, due to convene in Copenhagen in December 2009, is an opportunity to respond to the climate challenge with decisive, legally-binding commitments.
According to the UNEP boss, the world will need to take action towards reducing greenhouse emissions and to provide funding mechanisms to climate-proof vulnerable economies and communities.
The Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) allows developed countries to offset some of their emissions by funding projects in developing countries. The Mechanism is emerging as a key instrument for combating climate change and a creative stimulus package to developing country economies.
Thousands of projects joined the CDM in 2008. It is estimated the number of CDM projects will rise from 4,200 to 8,000 by 2012, generating financial flows from North to South of well over $30 billion.
It is widely agreed the mechanism needs to be made more robust in order for it to perform on the scale needed.
Up to 20 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions result from deforestation. But forests have, so far, made an insignificant contribution to CDM projects with only 0.7 per cent registered for afforestation and reforestation.
To unleash the enormous economic, environmental and social potential of forests, the UN launched, in September 2008, the UN Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) programme, which aims at tipping the economic balance in favour of the sustainable management of forests.
If REDD gets the green light in a post-2012 UN climate agreement it may eventually lead to developed countries being able to pay developing ones for the emissions saved from improved management of in particular tropical forests. Such an arrangement could be crucial in the global effort to avoid catastrophic climate change, but it must come in concert with the will to make deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.
The Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO); the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and UNEP implement the project, in the spirit of the UN 'Delivering as One'.
A report by UNEP's Finance Initiative indicates that public-private insurance solutions may well be needed to kick-start the forest carbon market and the potential of reduced emissions.
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