“The true cost of climate change isn’t measured in billions lost, but in futures uprooted, homes swallowed, cultures erased, and decisions made too late.” RRN2025
This year alone, the world is projected to lose $145 billion to climate disasters. That’s not a forecast, it’s a financial alarm bell already ringing. From devastating wildfires and floods to prolonged droughts and storms, climate impacts are accelerating faster than adaptation plans, insurance systems, or public infrastructure can keep up. But this isn’t just about numbers. It’s about real people. For Africa’s coastal communities, especially those already living with sea-level rise, erratic fish stocks, and land erosion, this loss is more than economic; it’s existential.
A Hidden Human Toll
According to Swiss Re’s Sigma 1/2025 report, insured losses from natural catastrophes are rising by 5-7% annually, reaching $137 billion in 2024. This year’s projection? $145 billion, and we’re only halfway through. January’s Los Angeles wildfires alone caused $40 billion in damages. Yet these staggering figures only cover insured losses. Left out are the uninsured: fishing cooperatives in West Africa, informal settlements in Mozambique, and flood-stricken communities in Bangladesh, all of whom endure loss without compensation or recognition.
Swiss Re warns there’s now a 1-in-10 chance that losses could hit $300 billion in a particularly severe year. That’s no longer just a financial risk; it’s a systemic failure in waiting.
In places like the Niger Delta, Mozambique, and West Africa’s mangrove-lined shores, fishers and women processors face seasonal floods that destroy drying huts, roads, and market stalls. These aren’t headlines, they are lived realities, steadily eroding both economic security and cultural continuity.
Governments: Counting What Counts
For governments, the $145 billion projected in climate disaster losses is not just a planning dilemma; it is a profound political test. Most national adaptation strategies still prioritise high-visibility infrastructure: ports, seawalls, highways, and expressways. But as countries revise their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement, there is a growing risk that these concrete symbols of development will continue to eclipse quieter, more enduring forms of resilience.
True resilience is not poured in cement. It is built on relationships, institutions, and justice. It is the early-warning system that reaches last-mile fishers before the storm. It is the shoreline mapped by local youth tracking erosion before it becomes displacement. It is the disaster committee where women’s voices shape preparedness. These are the building blocks of real adaptation, yet they remain underfunded, undervalued, and often overlooked in policy and budget.
To govern climate risk responsibly, governments must move beyond top-down metrics and ask the harder questions: Who is missing from the data? Whose resilience are we measuring, and whose are we ignoring?
The Private Sector: Reimagining Resilience as a Business Asset
The private sector must also take heed: climate risk is no longer theoretical; it is operational. For companies operating in or sourcing from coastal regions, climate disruptions are not just “environmental issues”; they are business hazards. When roads flood, deliveries stall. When fish stocks vanish, seafood markets shrink. When prolonged heatwaves affect worker health or power lines collapse, operations grind to a halt. And when disasters strike key suppliers, global supply chains falter.
Yet resilience is not merely a cost to absorb; it’s an opportunity to adapt and redesign. Smart businesses are moving from reactive recovery to proactive adaptation. This means investing in locally led climate intelligence, supporting insurance products for informal actors like small-scale fishers and processors, and co-designing climate-smart solutions with communities already innovating on the ground.
Take mangroves: a restored mangrove is not just an environmental buffer; it is a cost-saving asset. It shields coastal warehouses from storm surges, reduces insurance premiums, stabilises fish populations, and preserves fishing zones critical to long-term livelihoods.
For companies, resilience is no longer about boardroom sustainability targets; it’s about understanding that climate adaptation is risk management. And the smartest investments are the ones made before the next disaster strikes
Researchers and Consultants: The End of Extractive Expertise
The $145 billion projection also invites introspection within the global knowledge ecosystem. Far too often, data is extracted from frontline communities and never returned.
This must change.
At Revamp Rave Network, our Coastal Women Conferences have shown that when community leaders, women, and fishers gain access to real-time weather data or tidal forecasts, they adapt quickly. What they lack is not capacity, it’s access, communication, feedback, and recognition.
Researchers and consultants must shift from extractors to enablers: return findings, build tools with communities, and support local capacity with humility.
Coastal Communities: Already Acting, Still Underfunded
In delta towns and mangrove villages, resilience is already taking root as young people and communities spearhead local innovation. In Tanzania, the Ramani Huria project mobilised volunteers to map over 15,000 flood-prone zones in Dar es Salaam using mobile apps and GPS technology, enabling better urban planning and disaster preparedness. In Nigeria’s Niger Delta, organisations like CEHRD are building palm frond dikes and leading large-scale, community-driven mangrove restoration, rehabilitating thousands of hectares to protect shorelines and revive fish nurseries. Meanwhile, in Cameroon’s coastal towns of Batoke and Idenau, fishers are transitioning to solar-powered fish-drying ovens, reducing reliance on firewood, preserving mangrove ecosystems, and improving both productivity and livelihoods.
These are not future visions; they are current actions. But they remain unsupported. The UN estimates that “less than 10% of climate finance reaches local levels”, and even less reaches women-led initiatives. The adaptation gap, now over $200 billion annually, is more than a budget issue. It is a global justice failure.
A Smarter Equation for Adaptation
So what does $145 billion mean?
It means delay is no longer affordable. But it also means there is still time to act wisely. According to the Global Commission on Adaptation, every $1 invested in adaptation yields $4 in avoided losses. That’s not charity, that’s smart economics.
Adaptation is no longer a side programme. It must be the front line of climate policy.
At Revamp Rave Network, we believe that the most effective solutions are co-created with communities. Because the knowledge, urgency, and solutions already exist, especially on the coast.
Let’s stop waiting for climate losses to go viral before we pay attention. Let’s act like the $145 billion isn’t a warning, but a turning point.