Climate-related disasters have cost half a trillion dollars since world leaders last met to discuss climate change | Oxfam International

Ban Ki-moon Climate Summit at risk of failing to help stop climate change making people hungry

(New York, Sept 19) The cost of weather-related disasters in the five years since global leaders last met to discuss climate change is almost half a trillion dollars ($490 billion) – three times more than for the whole of the 1970s, Oxfam warns today.

In The Summit that Snoozed? Oxfam says that more than 650 million people have been affected and more than 112,000 lives lost as a result of weather-related disasters since 2009. Since then, each year has been among the top ten most expensive on record. Poor people are being hit first and hardest by climate change. Livelihoods and crops have been destroyed, increasing food prices and leaving millions hungry. However international commitments to reverse the threat of climate change have stalled.

See full Press Release: Climate-related disasters have cost half a trillion dollars since world leaders last met to discuss climate change | Oxfam International