that climate change is striking harder and more rapidly than many expected. The period of 2011–2020 has been the warmest decade on record. Of all disasters occurring during that time, 83% were caused by extreme weather- and climate-related events, such as floods, storms and heat waves. The number of such events has risen by almost 35% since the 1990s. Extreme weather caused USD 2.5 trillion in economic losses worldwide in the last two decades and took the lives of more than 410,000 people in the last decade alone, the vast majority in low-income and lower-middle-income countries.

Extreme weather has displaced 20 million people per year in the last ten years – this is equivalent to the entire population of Beijing having to flee their homes every year.