With more than 400 fatalities and losses worth 60 billion dollars (about 51 billion euros at the current exchange rate), the streak of devastating fires recorded in January in the Los Angeles metropolitan area represent the most costly disaster linked to climate change in 2025 in the world, according to a report prepared by . Every December, this organization compiles the 10 most expensive catastrophes linked to global warming of the year, based mainly on data on insured assets. And those alone accumulate almost half of the losses of that selection, which together amount to 122,000 million dollars in the ten events analyzed.
The second place is occupied by cyclones and floods that. They left $25 billion in damage and killed more than 1,750 people in Thailand, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Vietnam and Malaysia. In third place are the also, which displaced thousands of people, caused damage worth $11.7 billion, and killed at least 30 people. But, beyond the list of those 10 most costly events, the authors highlight that “no continent” has been saved from “devastating climate disasters in 2025.”
As Joanna Haigh, emeritus professor of Atmospheric Physics at Imperial College London, explains, it is really not correct to talk about “natural disasters,” because all these catastrophes “are the inevitable result of the continued expansion of fossil fuels and political delay.”
The Christian Aid report directly points to this when it highlights that “fossil fuel companies, large and small, are complicit in the deaths and suffering caused by the disasters they themselves fuel.” These fuels are mainly responsible for climate change, which makes extreme events harsher and sometimes more frequent. “The burning of coal, oil and gas reduces global GDP, and although estimates vary depending on methodology, one thing is certain: the damage caused by the fossil fuel industry is severe, growing and could reach trillions annually if left unchecked.” And he adds: “However, this same deadly and destructive industry continues to receive billions in investments and public aid to accelerate its expansion instead of limiting it.”
“The good news is that,” adds Patrick Watt, CEO of Christian Aid, in the introduction to the report. “This transition to a renewable-powered economy is inevitable, but the critical challenge is whether it will move quickly and fairly enough to protect the poorest people,” he adds.
The classification prepared annually by this organization is based mainly on loss estimates regularly published by the British insurance company Aon, which the authors complete with other sources. By relying on insured assets, it excludes “other forms of loss that are difficult to quantify, such as damage to livelihoods, loss of income, long-term damage to the environment, and permanent displacement of residents.” Therefore, the authors admit that “the true cost of disasters is almost certainly much greater than the insured losses.”
But, in addition, this classification system means that rich countries are overrepresented, because the value of properties is higher there, as is the level of insurance coverage. Despite everything, the authors recall that “some of the most devastating extreme weather events of 2025 affected the poorest countries, which have contributed little to the climate crisis and have fewer resources to respond.”
Climate change footprint
In any case, this annual classification is useful by focusing on the specific economic losses that climate change is causing. Because each disaster that is reviewed is accompanied by references to scientific studies that link it to global warming. For example, in the case of the fires a year ago in Los Angeles, “the findings show that climate change substantially worsened the conditions” that made them “so destructive.”
In this year’s edition, in addition to the aforementioned top 10another dozen relevant disasters in the world have been included whose economic losses are not so well identified. And again fires play a central role. Specifically, two episodes from this summer are cited: , especially to Scotland, .
Among the fires that hit the United Kingdom, the report highlights those of Carrbridge and Dava Moor at the end of June, which “devastated extensive areas of moorland and forest in the Highlands.” Taken together, estimates point to economic impacts on the UK as a whole of “more than £350 million.” [unos 400 millones de euros]taking into account the costs of firefighting, land damage, smoke pollution and impacts on the tourism and agricultural sectors.” Regarding the causes, the authors recall that “climate change is already making forest fires” in this country “more frequent and more severe, causing warmer and drier conditions.”
The same occurs in the case of the Iberian Peninsula, which this summer suffered a wave of fires that increased the hectares affected by the flames to levels never seen in Spain since the nineties of the last century. Furthermore, the consequences of this episode were also intensely suffered in the north of Portugal. “Preliminary economic assessments suggest that direct economic losses from the fires are estimated at $810 million,” the report explains. It is recalled that it established that “climate change made this event approximately 40 times more likely and increased the intensity of the conditions for a fire to occur by approximately 30%.”
Precisely, on catastrophes and the insurance sector, which partly serves as the basis for Christian Aid’s classification, it had a specific chapter on fires. “The increasing risk of wildfires has become a major concern for the global insurance industry, especially in the western regions of the United States, Canada and parts of southern Europe,” AON warned. “Driven by climate change, prolonged droughts, rising temperatures and an acceleration of development in wildfire-prone areas, destructive fires are increasing in both frequency and severity,” this insurance group warned.
