WEATHER COSTS

BY KEITH NUTHALLNATURAL disasters cost the world US$60 billion in 2003, up from around US$55 billion the previous year, a Munich Re assessment for the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has claimed. The bulk of this year's losses were caused by weather-related catastrophes, said UNEP, which is linking them with global warming. It called on governments, business and industry to back emerging emissions trading markets to reduce these losses. Most costly was this summer's extreme heatwave that killed at least 20,000 Europeans and destroyed more than US$10 ...


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