Climate change has caused a minimum of Sh5.41 trillion ($41 billion) damage in the six months since the last major climate conference, COP28, which was held in Dubai, according to the climate breakdown 2024 report by Christian Aid.
The report takes note of four extreme weather events that took place in the first half of 2024; the recent floods in Brazil, flooding and heat waves in Asia and the flooding experienced in East Africa.
“We need rich countries who are largely responsible for causing the climate crisis to massively scale up funding for action on climate change. They need to show real creativity and political will, and tax polluters and the super-rich in order to finance real climate action,” Mariana Paoli, Christian Aid’s Global Advocacy Lead, said.
Paoli said burns caused by the climate crisis won’t be healed if people are still throwing fossil fuels on the fire, adding that with slow progress recorded towards shift from fossil fuels and support to lower income countries in coping with climate disasters, it is not easy to quantify billions lost as the true number of damages continue to rise.
“We need to cancel historic debt owed to rich countries by poor ones, and instead make sure that that money is used to improve climate equality, to help everyone to be safer from climate disasters,” Paoli said.
The report, which comes at a time when climate change is affecting life at all scales, highlights that the developed and rich countries are partially to blame as they are responsible for the lion’s share of the greenhouse gases that are heating the atmosphere and fueling extreme events.
Africa has continued to face climate disasters such as terrible floods and landslides. In Kenya, more than 500 people lost their lives to floods and landslides.
