Climate disasters in Brazil have increased by 250% in the last four years (2020–2023), compared to records from the 1990s, reveals a study launched by the Brazilian Alliance for Oceanic Culture – coordinated by the Maré Science Program at the Federal University of São Paulo (Unifesp), by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MCTI) and by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco), in partnership with the Fundação Grupo Boticário.
The study, which used public data extracted from the Integrated Disaster Information System (S2ID) of the Ministry of Regional Integration and Development, considering the period from 1991 to 2023, also analyzed data on average air and ocean surface temperatures over the last 32 years. , based on information from the European agency Copernicus, obtained through the Climate Reanalyzer platform.
According to the researchers, for every 0.1°C increase in the global average air temperature, an additional 360 climate disasters occurred in Brazil. In the ocean, for every 0.1°C increase in the global average ocean surface temperature, an additional 584 extreme events were recorded in the country.
“When the 2024 data is consolidated, there will be confirmation of the escalation of climate disasters in more recent years. The survey shows that 6,523 climate disasters were recorded in Brazilian municipalities in the 1990s, while, in the period 2020–2023, 16,306 events were recorded”, say the researchers.
According to the survey, Brazil has had 64,280 climate disasters since 1990, and there is an increase, on average, of 100 records per year. In the first ten years monitored, there were 725 records per year. From 2000 to 2009, 1,892 annual records; from 2010 to 2019, 2,254 annual registrations and, in the last four years (2020 to 2023), there are already 4,077 registrations per year.
Professor Ronaldo Christofoletti, from Unifesp’s Instituto do Mar, member of the Network of Specialists in Nature Conservation and one of the coordinators of the study, said that the objective of the survey is to contribute to society knowing, debating and thinking about solutions, encouraging decision-making and necessary behavioral changes, both at an individual and institutional level, to reduce climate impacts and ensure a sustainable future for Brazil.
The study also showed that 5,117 Brazilian municipalities reported damage caused by climate disasters between 1991 and 2023, representing 92% of the country’s municipalities. The main occurrences were droughts (50% of records), followed by floods, floods and floods (27%) and storms (19%).
Ocean
Since March 2023, the ocean has seen an increase in temperatures of around 0.3°C to 0.5°C, a phenomenon that has worsened extreme events, such as hurricanes and floods, affecting millions of people and deeply impacting ecosystems. Examples include the floods in Rio Grande do Sul and the droughts in the Central-West, in 2024. Christofoletti highlighted that the ocean is fundamental for global climate regulation and that its continuous warming highlights the growing impacts of the climate crisis on the Earth system .
“This is very worrying considering that over the last 40 years the ocean has warmed by around 0.6°C. This abrupt and prolonged warming threatens the balance of a system that covers 70% of the planet. The ocean, at this level of warming, intensifies extreme weather events that directly impact millions of people,” he said.
When analyzing the economic and social consequences, the scenario indicated that, between 1995 and 2023, economic losses in Brazil reached R$547.2 billion. In the first four years of the 2020s, losses totaled R$188.7 billion, 80% of the total recorded in the entire previous decade (2010–2019) and corresponds to 0.5% of the national GDP accumulated in the last four years.
Projections based on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the current rate of disaster records show that the numbers could increase in the coming decades. In the most optimistic scenario, by the end of the century, in which the goals of the Paris Agreement to limit the increase in temperature to 1.5°C are met, Brazil could record up to 128,604 climate disasters between 2024 and 2050, twice as many as total observed in the last three decades. In the most pessimistic scenario, in which the planet’s warming exceeds 4°C, the number of disasters could reach almost 600,000 occurrences by 2100, nine times the number recorded between 1991 and 2023.
According to the study, even in the smallest scenario, Brazil could suffer an impact of R$1.61 trillion by 2050. If the pessimistic scenario comes to fruition, the costs could exceed R$8.2 trillion by the end of the century, 15 times the total observed in recent decades.
For the researcher involved in the study and project manager at Fundação Grupo Boticário, Janaína Bumbeer, despite the negative projections, there is still time to act. According to Janaína, in addition to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, it is essential to seek community resilience and adaptation to new climate conditions.
“In this sense, nature-based solutions are effective tools to strengthen the resilience of coastal cities, facing environmental, social and economic challenges in an integrated way. The recovery of mangroves and dunes, for example, is among the blue-green solutions, which promote adaptation to the urban and coastal environment, increasing resilience against extreme climate events and building healthier and more sustainable cities”, he stated.
The researcher highlighted that the increase in global temperature, in addition to increasing extreme events, causes an increase in energy and food costs, water scarcity and an increase in heat-related diseases, such as dengue fever. “The time to act is now. With coordinated and efficient global efforts, we can strengthen the resilience of nature and humanity, building a more sustainable and secure future for all.”
