SYLLABUS
GS-3: Disaster and Disaster Management.
Context: According to a new report by UK charity, Christian Aid, the 2025 southwest monsoon season in India and Pakistan recorded eight per cent more than normal rainfall, triggering maximum fatalities among 2025’s major climate disasters.
More on the News
- The report — Counting the Cost 2025: A year of climate breakdown — has found that heat waves, wildfires, droughts, and storms cost the world more than $120 billion in 2025 just from the top 10 disasters affecting the planet.
- The monsoon impact in India, alongside Pakistan, is ranked at fifth position based on financial loss.
Key Findings of the Report
• Escalating cost of Climate Change: The report identified the year’s 10 costliest extreme events influenced by the climate crisis, each causing over $1 billion in damage.
• Fossil fuel companies playing a central role in driving the crisis: The fingerprints of fossil fuels are evident across the year’s most expensive disasters—from storm-ravaged coastlines of the United States to the flooded plains of the Indian subcontinent—with the common denominator being a warming world driven by oil, gas, and coal.
• Spatial Expansion of Crisis: Incidentally, no continent was spared from crippling climate disasters in 2025, with at least one disaster in each of the six populated regions of the world finding space in the report.
• Climate Change’s Direct Role: Scientists attribute the extremity to global warming, with monsoons intensifying by about 5% for each degree of heating; attribution studies show Pakistan’s rains were 12% heavier than in a pre-industrial world.
- Warmer oceans increased evaporation and atmospheric moisture, driving intense deluges, while melting glaciers and permafrost amplified floods and triggered landslides.
• Asia Bears Heaviest Losses: Asia was home to four of the six costliest disasters, including floods in India and Pakistan that resulted in losses of up to $6bn and affected more than 7mn people in Pakistan alone.
Comparison with Other Major Climate Disasters
- United States: Two of the top 10 costliest disasters occurred here, led by the Palisades and Eaton wildfires in California, causing damages exceeding $60 billion.
- Southeast Asia: Cyclones affecting Thailand, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, and Malaysia ranked second, with losses of $25 billion.
- China: Extreme rainfall and floods (June–August) resulted in $11.7 billion in damages.
- Caribbean: Category 5 Hurricane Melissa devastated Jamaica, Cuba, and the Bahamas, causing $8 billion in losses.
