Costly Climate Change and Marine Cleaning
Dr Anjani Ganase looks at some of the latest marine and climate science research. The World Meteorological Office reported a seven-fold increase in extreme events since 1970s. While some of the increase is associated with better reporting mechanisms and population expansion, climate change is a major driver. Given the projected increase in extreme climate events, researchers from New Zealand have assessed the global cost of extreme events attributed to climate change over the last twenty years. Assessments pertaining to the US alone estimated a cost of $260. 8 billion in economic damages related to climate change, which roughly made up 53 % of the total cost. Most of the cost was associated with storm damage (64 %), followed by heat waves (16 %), then flood (10 %) and drought (10 %), wildfires (2 %) and cold events (2 %). Over the last twenty years, the extreme events that cost the most in the US were the storm events of 2005 – Katrina, ...