United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR)’s Post

The 39 Small Island Developing States (SIDS) – places like Barbados, Grenada, Fiji and Vanuatu – are uniquely vulnerable to climate change – and they are already paying the price. Tropical cyclones and hurricanes have long battered small islands, but extreme storms and floods are happening more frequently. We have got better at measuring their economic effects – but we need to improve further. New research from ODI Global looks at extreme weather events directly affecting 35 island nations – the damaged homes, the injured people, ruined infrastructure; and at the impacts on GDP growth and public finances – changes that are not felt immediately, but affect of stalling economy stalls, loss of tourism, and expensive recovery plans that inhibit spending in other areas. In all, from 2000 to 2020, these direct and indirect impacts were estimated to cost small island states a total of US$141 billion. This stark reality in SIDS represents only a fraction of the true scale of impacts, particularly those arising from climate change induced slow-onset processes and slow-onset disasters, non-economic losses, etc. - elements that often do not get reflected in global databases like EM-DAT due to inclusion thresholds, gaps on data collection and methodological challenges to assess cascading and cumulative effects. Find out more about tracking losses and damages ➡️ https://ow.ly/3hVh50UgC1E #COP29