UN/DESA Policy Brief #50: International finance to support climate change resilience

In the past 20 years, weather-related disasters affected 4.2 billion people worldwide, with a large loss of life and livelihoods. The global annual average cost of climatic disasters, including floods, storms, droughts and heat waves, is estimated to have risen from $64 billion during the period 1985-1994 to $154 billion in the period 2005-2014. A more complete estimate of global costs, taking into account the loss associated with slow-onset climate events (e.g., sea-level rise and desertification), is likely to yield a larger figure.