{"id":257650,"date":"2025-12-30T07:44:18","date_gmt":"2025-12-30T07:44:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/257650\/"},"modified":"2025-12-30T07:44:18","modified_gmt":"2025-12-30T07:44:18","slug":"ten-most-costly-climate-related-disasters-this-year-caused-e100bn-damage-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/257650\/","title":{"rendered":"Ten most costly climate-related disasters\u00a0this year caused \u20ac100bn damage \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Climate-related disasters<\/a> caused<\/a> severe economic harm in 2025, with the 10 most costly responsible for damage exceeding \u20ac100 billion. <\/p>\n

Only officially recorded damages are assessed, so the true figure, when uninsured losses and long-term environmental damage are taken into account, is believed to be much higher. <\/p>\n

The human cost is incalculable, with thousands of lives lost and the livelihoods and plans of many more people destroyed. <\/p>\n

The analysis carried out for Christian Aid shows the wildfires that raged in California last January were the most expensive in financial terms, assessed at more than $60 billion (\u20ac51 billion). <\/p>\n

Fatalities directly caused by the fires numbered 31 but around 400 more are believed to have resulted indirectly. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Keith Duggan on LA after the fires: `Like driving through a post-nuclear suburbia’ Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

A spate of cyclones and associated extreme rain and flooding in November killed 1,750 people and cost at least $25 billion in Thailand, Indonesia, Sr Lanka, Vietnam and Malaysia. <\/p>\n

Extreme flooding in China, India and Pakistan; back-to-back typhoons in the Philippines, Hurricane Melissa in Jamaica, floods in Texas and a prolonged drought in Brazil each caused damages exceeding $1 billion while hundreds of people died. <\/p>\n

Conor O\u2019Neill, head of policy at Christian Aid Ireland, said: \u201cThe costs of inaction \u2013 in destroyed homes, devastated livelihoods and lost lives \u2013 far, far outweigh the money we ought to spend now to tackle this crisis.\u201d <\/p>\n

Other extreme weather-related events are also chronicled in the report which says \u201cno continent was spared from crippling climate disasters\u201d. <\/p>\n

Wildfires destroyed 47,000 hectares of moor, woodland and highlands in Britain; 260,000 hectares in Portugal and 383,000 hectares in Spain. <\/p>\n

Drought crippled several countries in South America, Iran and west Asia while floods caused devastation in Nigeria and Democratic Republic of Congo. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe world is paying an ever-higher price for a crisis we already know how to solve,\u201d said Joanna Haigh, emeritus professor of atmospheric physics at Imperial College London. <\/p>\n

\u201cThese disasters are not \u2018natural\u2019 \u2013 they are the inevitable result of continued fossil fuel expansion and political delay.\u201d <\/p>\n

Christian Aid said while the high bills arose in richer countries, the impact of climate-related disasters was disproportionately severe on poorer countries. <\/p>\n

\u201cCommunities in the countries we work in are especially vulnerable to climate shocks, often lacking insurance and adequate social safety nets,\u201d said Mr O\u2019Neill. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe landmark 2015 Paris Agreement was based around the polluter pays principle, whereby the wealthy, high-emitting countries who overwhelmingly caused the crisis committed to provide the resources needed to fix it. <\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, long-pledged financial support is still not flowing to developing countries at the scale and speed required. <\/p>\n

\u201cIn 2026, world leaders must address this injustice and act with urgency. This means meeting our climate finance targets, investing in climate action, and breaking our dependence on fossil fuels to urgently reduce emissions.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Climate-related disasters caused severe economic harm in 2025, with the 10 most costly responsible for damage exceeding \u20ac100…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":166406,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[269],"tags":[442,18,440,19,17,133,1102],"class_list":{"0":"post-257650","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-climate-change","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-environment","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-science","14":"tag-weather-events"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115807405120621887","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257650"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257650\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}