What climate change is costing Caribbean countries and other small island states

The price of inaction: how local weather induced excessive climate is harming the Caribbean

For the primary time, researchers have calculated the size of local weather change induced loss and injury brought on by storms, floods, and different excessive climate in a few of the world’s most local weather weak island nations (SIDS).

A brand new report from the Resilient and Sustainable Islands Initiative (RESI) at suppose tank ODI demonstrates that islands within the Caribbean are the worst affected on the planet. Collectively Caribbean SIDS face $835 million in injury every year from Tropical cyclones alone.

The Bahamas, Belize, Grenada, Dominica and Haiti have been significantly laborious hit when it comes to Authorities income misplaced and deaths brought on by local weather change pushed occasions.

The report comes as a brand new movie, Local weather Blueprint Dominica Premieres in London and Abu Dhabi shines a light-weight on the injury completed by Hurricane Maria and affords new learnings and improvements for different Caribbean nations looking for to construct local weather resilience.

The Caribbean island of Dominica was the toughest hit financially and remains to be rebuilding from 2017’s Hurricane Maria. Haiti noticed 2,500 deaths attributed to local weather change pushed excessive climate, probably the most of any island nation globally.

Excessive climate occasions value small islands $105 billion over a 22-year interval, of which $38.4 billion may be attributed to local weather change. These climate-attributable losses will rise by 11 per cent to $56 billion underneath a 2°C warming state of affairs by 2050. The research discovered:

• An estimated 10,113 deaths related to climate-related occasions had been recorded in SIDS. Anthropogenic local weather change was chargeable for 38%, or 3,800, of those deaths.

• Annual financial losses of US$1.7 billion may be attributed to local weather change from excessive climate occasions alone, representing 0.8% of the collective gross home product (GDP) of SIDS yearly.

• Floods and storms are projected to supply cumulative climate-attributable loss and injury of $56 billion in SIDS underneath a 2°C warming state of affairs by 2050. This is able to characterize 11% larger common annual loss and injury over the following 23 years (2023–2045) than over the previous 23 years (2000–2022).

• There may be three-to-five instances extra loss and injury in SIDS as % of presidency revenues than non-SIDS, throughout all revenue teams. The impression on authorities revenues for high-income SIDS just like the Bahamas and Barbados is 4 instances higher than different high-income nations such because the US, Canada, Australia and European nations.

Courtney Lindsey, a Senior Analysis Officer with the Resilient and Sustainable Islands Initiative at ODI mentioned: “Caribbean nations disproportionately undergo from highly effective storms and hurricanes, however flash flooding and droughts can even trigger rising prices”. This analysis affords a powerful argument for island nations who’re looking for bigger spending allocations for local weather resilience constructing and loss and injury compensation from the polluting nations which are inflicting the local weather disaster.

“Colonial historical past is enjoying into loss and injury. The British, Spanish and others, constructed infrastructure in our nations near the coast, making adaptation of important infrastructure to local weather change all of the costlier and difficult. However the expertise of Dominica reveals {that a} path to a safe future is feasible. One important factor each Caribbean nation wants to think about is altering home constructing requirements, in order that properties stand the take a look at of time in an period of elevated excessive climate occasions.”

The paper additionally affords suggestions to assist inform the event of sufficient monetary mechanisms, together with the Loss and Injury Fund, after a breakthrough in local weather negotiations led to affirmation a fund can be created and hosted with the world financial institution.

Emily Wilkinson, Director of the Resilient and Sustainable Islands Initiative at ODI and lead writer of the analysis paper mentioned: “It’s important that any future loss and injury fund is provided with ample finance to take care of the challenges posed in a 2 levels C state of affairs. Small islands can even want a quick finance mechanism that will get assist to small islands rapidly, in months quite than years.”

The research authors famous the prices from slow-onset occasions comparable to sea degree rise and salt water salination of farmland might properly be far larger in small islands within the Pacific and Atlantic, Indian Ocean and South China Sea, significantly amongst low mendacity atoll nations susceptible to world sea degree rises. However Caribbean islands might additionally face extra prices as a result of proportion of their populations residing in low mendacity areas.