Yearly Losses from Disasters Quadruple as World Bank Links Typhoon to Climate Change

Annual economic losses from natural disasters have almost quadrupled in the past three decades, the World Bank said in a report that recommends investments ranging from early-warning systems to safer roads and buildings.

The average reported losses rose from around $US50 billion ($53 billion) a year in the 1980s to almost $US200 billion a year in the past decade, totaling $US3.8 trillion from 1980 to 2012, according to the report, which used data by Munich Re, the world's largest reinsurer.  Three-quarters of the total was due to extreme weather, it said.

Typhoon Haiyan “brought into sharp focus how climate change is intensifying the severity of extreme weather events, which hurts the poor the most,” World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said in an e-mailed statement.  “The world can no longer afford to put off action to slow greenhouse emissions, and help countries prepare for a world of greater climate and disaster risks.”

Yearly Losses from Disasters Quadruple as World Bank Links Typhoon to Climate Change