Caribbean bears brunt of £43bn climate-fuelled damage to developing islands

Caribbean nations suffered $53.2bn (£40bn) of damage from climate-fuelled disasters between 2000 and 2024, research into the cost of the climate crisis to developing small islands has found.

The figure is more than 90% of the total $57bn in economic damage caused by floods, storms and drought across 39 developing island nations in the Caribbean, the Pacific, the Atlantic, the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea, according to a study by development thinktank ODI Global.

ODI Global also estimates the climate crisis caused more than 190 deaths a year over the 25-year period studied.

The research is important for conversations about global climate reparations, the report’s author, Emily Wilkinson, said.

The Caribbean has been pursuing climate justice after bearing the brunt of the crisis, which is primarily caused by high carbon emitters outside the region.

Several Caribbean countries provided evidence to the international court of justice, the world’s top UN court, in a case that ended last year with a landmark advisory opinion that could mean states are ordered to pay compensation if they fail to tackle fossil fuels and prevent harm to the climate system.

Wilkinson said: “There have always been hurricanes, heavy rainfall, drought and temperature extremes, historically, but it’s really important to be able to say what percentage of that kind of strength or intensity is actually due to increasing global temperatures.

“Climate scientists do these attribution studies and they’re really important for when we start to think about responsibilities for the impacts of climate change, compensation and climate reparation.

“[They] tell you what kind of proportion of the intensity of the event is due to climate change. We’ve taken it a step further by doing an additional calculation, which is a fraction of attributable risk, to work out what percentage of the damage that’s been reported can be attributed to climate change.”

The aftermath of Hurricane Melissa, which hit Jamaica in October 2025 and which experts say was supercharged by global heating. Photograph: Ina Sotirova/The Guardian

Published on Wednesday, the report also highlights the devastating impact of Hurricane Melissa, which tore through Jamaica in October 2025 with winds of 185mph (298 km/h), the strongest ever recorded in the country.

Experts say the storm was supercharged by global heating. The report attributes $9.7bn – about 80% of the $12.2bn of the government’s calculated damage and losses – directly to the climate crisis. This figure is almost half of the country’s total economy and far above commitments to the UN’s loss and damage fund to help climate vulnerable countries recover from disasters.

For Jamaica, it was the second year in a row that brutal storms caused widespread damage, after 2024’s Hurricane Beryl. Thousands of people were left without homes, livelihoods, communication services and basic utilities such as water and power.

As climate losses escalate, ODI says that international financing for climate crisis mitigation and adaptation is moving in the wrong direction as some wealthy nations cut contributions.

Government agencies and service providers in countries such as Jamaica have had to rethink their operations.

In May, Jamaica’s government passed the National Reconstruction and Resilience Authority Act to speed up post-disaster rebuilding and improve resilience, and last month its prime minister, Andrew Holness, promised to invest in cleaner and cheaper renewable sources such as solar.

For Marcelo Cataldo, the chief executive of Digicel Group, one of the Caribbean’s leading internet and telecoms providers, the worsening climate shocks mean the company needs to rethink how it powers its network.

A building destroyed by Hurricane Beryl, which swept through Jamaica in 2024. People were left without homes and basic utilities such as water and power. Photograph: Ina Sotirova/The Guardian

Digicel has responded by accelerating a major shift to solar energy. The company has partnered with the American renewable energy company Caban Energy to roll out solar‑powered telecom sites in Jamaica and Barbados, with plans to expand to 15 of its 25 markets.

Digicel says their solar systems can generate 15,000MWh of clean energy a year, enough to power 10,000 Caribbean homes. They also avoid approximately 200,000 litres of diesel use annually and cut emissions by 16,457 tonnes of CO₂e – equivalent to removing 3,600 cars from the road.

Solar, Cataldo says, is not just more environmentally friendly but also more resilient, allowing communication systems to remain online for longer if a storm knocks out power.

“We know that in a big hurricane … the infrastructure of the electricity company will affect us and all the other industries. Having solar is an outstanding alternative to return the service faster to our customers,” Cataldo said.

Wilkinson said switching to solar is one solution Caribbean nations could consider to improve resilience, but “they will need to overcome high upfront costs and address issues such as intermittency, storage and grid stability”.

For Cataldo, the solution is partnerships with companies such as Caban Energy. “This is the kind of collaboration needed to accelerate the energy transition for our region,” he added.

ODI Global’s findings suggest that such adaptations will become increasingly necessary. According to the report, under a 1.5C warming scenario, storms alone could cause a further $49bn in climate‑attributable losses across small island developing nations by 2050. At 2C, that rises to $51bn.