The cost of inaction: how climate induced extreme weather is harming the Caribbean
For the first time, researchers have calculated the scale of climate change induced loss and damage caused by storms, floods, and other extreme weather in some of the world’s most climate vulnerable island nations (SIDS).
A new report from the Resilient and Sustainable Islands Initiative (RESI) at think tank ODI demonstrates that islands in the Caribbean are the worst affected in the world. Collectively Caribbean SIDS face $835 million in damage each year from Tropical cyclones alone.
The Bahamas, Belize, Grenada, Dominica and Haiti have been particularly hard hit in terms of Government revenue lost and deaths caused by climate change driven events.
The report comes as a new film, Climate Blueprint Dominica Premieres in London and Abu Dhabi shines a light on the damage done by Hurricane Maria and offers new learnings and innovations for other Caribbean nations seeking to build climate resilience.
The Caribbean island of Dominica was the hardest hit financially and is still rebuilding from 2017’s Hurricane Maria. Haiti saw 2,500 deaths attributed to climate change driven extreme weather, the most of any island nation globally.
Extreme weather events cost small islands $105 billion over a 22-year period, of which $38.4 billion can be attributed to climate change. These climate-attributable losses will rise by 11 per cent to $56 billion under a 2°C warming scenario by 2050. The study found:
- An estimated 10,113 deaths associated with climate-related events were recorded in SIDS. Anthropogenic climate change was responsible for 38%, or 3,800, of these deaths.
- Annual economic losses of US$1.7 billion can be attributed to climate change from extreme weather events alone, representing 0.8% of the collective gross domestic product (GDP) of SIDS every year.
- Floods and storms are projected to produce cumulative climate-attributable loss and damage of $56 billion in SIDS under a 2°C warming scenario by 2050. This would represent 11% higher average annual loss and damage over the next 23 years (2023–2045) than over the past 23 years (2000–2022).
- There is three-to-five times more loss and damage in SIDS as % of government revenues than non-SIDS, across all income groups. The impact on government revenues for high-income SIDS like the Bahamas and Barbados is 4 times greater than other high-income countries such as the US, Canada, Australia and European nations.
Courtney Lindsey, a Senior Research Officer with the Resilient and Sustainable Islands Initiative at ODI said: “Caribbean nations disproportionately suffer from powerful storms and hurricanes, but flash flooding and droughts will also cause rising costs”. This research offers a strong argument for island nations who are seeking larger spending allocations for climate resilience building and loss and damage compensation from the polluting nations that are causing the climate crisis.
“Colonial history is playing into loss and damage. The British, Spanish and others, built infrastructure in our countries close to the coast, making adaptation of critical infrastructure to climate change all the more expensive and challenging. But the experience of Dominica shows that a path to a secure future is possible. One critical thing every Caribbean nation needs to consider is changing house building standards, so that homes stand the test of time in an era of increased extreme weather events.”
The paper also offers recommendations to help inform the development of adequate financial mechanisms, including the Loss and Damage Fund, after a breakthrough in climate negotiations led to confirmation a fund would be created and hosted with the world bank.
Emily Wilkinson, Director of the Resilient and Sustainable Islands Initiative at ODI and lead author of the research paper said: “It is essential that any future loss and damage fund is equipped with sufficient finance to deal with the challenges posed in a 2 degrees C scenario. Small islands will also need a fast finance mechanism that gets help to small islands quickly, in months rather than years.”
The study authors noted the costs from slow-onset events such as sea level rise and salt water salination of farmland may well be far higher in small islands in the Pacific and Atlantic, Indian Ocean and South China Sea, particularly amongst low lying atoll nations at risk of global sea level rises. But Caribbean islands may also face additional costs due to the proportion of their populations living in low lying areas.
