COVID-19 has demonstrated yet again how all disaster risks interconnect – how a public health crisis can rapidly trigger an economic disaster and societal upheaval.
Rather than regarding the human and economic costs as inevitable, countries would do far better to make their populations and infrastructure more resilient.
The annual cost of adaptation for natural and other biological hazards under the worst-case climate change scenario is estimated at USD270 billion, which could be financed through new, innovative sources such as climate resilience bonds, debt-for-resilience swaps, and debt relief initiatives.