Extreme Weather
– Better Reporting or Prophetic Trend?

Bad Weather, Climate Change Cost World Record $90 Billion
Bloomberg

Dec. 15 -- Hurricanes and other extreme weather caused more than $90 billion of losses in the first 10 months of the year, showing the economic cost of climate change caused by global warming, the United Nations said.

Extreme weather across the globe, from a record 10 typhoons in Japan to the first hurricane ever in South America, cost insurance companies $35 billion through October, more than double a year earlier, according to a study for the UN by Munich Re, the world's largest reinsurer. Losses were 28 percent more than the average $70 billion of annual losses in the past decade.
 

The study shows how the world faces rising losses in years ahead as global warming causes flooding, drought and other extreme, Klaus Toepfer, executive director of the UN Environment Program, said at a conference on climate change in Buenos Aires.

``We don't need more evidence, and we need to start acting now,'' Thomas Loster, Munich Re's director of climate and natural disaster research, said in an interview at the conference. ``There has been a significant increase in extreme events which are unequivocally linked to climate change.''

The world was hammered by an unprecedented string of weather- related disasters in 2004 as average global temperatures were the fourth warmest on record.

The Caribbean was hit by four hurricanes, including Ivan, which cost the island nation of Grenada $1 billion, the equivalent of twice its gross domestic product. Typhoons in Japan caused $10 billion of losses. And in the U.S., hurricanes and other disasters caused $26 billion of losses.

``The change in weather is happening now, and it's happening at a faster pace than anticipated,'' said Toepfer.

'No Scientific Evidence'

The findings contrast with U.S. government assertions that there's no proof that global warming is causing a change in weather. In 2001, U.S. President George W. Bush pulled out of the Kyoto Protocol that requires developed countries to combat global warming by reducing greenhouse gas emissions through 2012.

``There's no scientific direct evidence connecting storms to climate change,'' Vice Admiral Conrad Lautenbacher, U.S. commerce undersecretary for oceans and atmosphere, said in an interview in Buenos Aires yesterday. ``It depends on the measurements you take.''

To contact the reporter on this story:
Michael Smith in Rio de Janeiro at mssmith@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Laura Zelenko in New York at lzelenko@bloomberg.net