El Niño Record Forecast Spurs CAF's Billion-Dollar Pledge

Facing a potentially record El Niño, the Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean voted on October 2 to approve $3.5 billion in financing across 10 countries. It also set aside one billion dollars specifically for the climate phenomenon's fallout. The bank expects El Niño to cost the region losses close to 2 percent of GDP, and says 4.8 million people could be pushed into poverty, according to reporting on the board decision.

The package, greenlit by the board, covers 15 operations spanning infrastructure, sustainable mobility, energy transition, education, decarbonization and disaster recovery. Colombia is the main recipient, with $1.25 billion earmarked for climate and blue-economy programs, development projects in Medellín, the La Dorada-Chiriguaná rail corridor and repairs from the 7.4-magnitude earthquake that struck in August. Brazil is in line for five hundred million dollars to modernize the power grid in Minas Gerais, while a credit line for Chile's BancoEstado grows by four hundred million dollars. Money is also going to Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Honduras and Uruguay.

The bank's executive president, Sergio Díaz-Granados, said the approvals demonstrate its ability to respond to what he called the "diverse needs" of member countries, from infrastructure and energy to education, climate action and disaster recovery. According to the bank, the effects of El Niño could weigh on growth through agricultural, livestock and fishing losses, infrastructure damage, lower productivity, supply chain disruption and rising prices.

Alongside the lending package, the board announced a roadmap for 2026 to 2031 aimed at a Latin America that is more resilient, integrated and prosperous.

Forecasts point to a record event

The money is arriving as forecasts keep worsening. The U.S. Climate Prediction Center said on September 10 that the chance of a historic-strength El Niño during October to December has risen to 75 percent, up from 69 percent in August. The same assessment put the probability of a very strong event at 98 percent, measured on the Relative Oceanic Niño Index, or RONI, as reported by The Watchers.

A historic event would mean a RONI reading higher than any El Niño in the center's record, which dates to 1950. Sea surface temperature anomalies topped three degrees across the eastern equatorial Pacific in August, with the Niño-1+2 region running 3.4 degrees above normal and Niño-3.4 at 1.8 degrees above normal. An El Niño Advisory remains in effect.

Related: The Wild Weather Quiz runs through six questions on recent extreme weather.

Health agencies sound the alarm

The financial mobilization follows a health warning issued this week. Researchers at the University of the Witwatersrand published a letter in The Lancet this week urging the World Health Organization to declare the climate crisis a public health emergency of international concern, according to BusinessDay.

"If that number was an infectious disease, it would be clear that this warrants a declaration of a public health emergency," said Nicholas Brink, the clinical researcher who led the letter. He was referring to projections from the University of Chicago's Climate Impact Lab, which estimated that extreme heat driven by the record El Niño could cause four hundred fifty-one thousand additional deaths between June and February 2027.

The letter argues that health systems are ill-prepared for the cascade of heat illness, infectious disease, food and water insecurity and mental health strain that extreme weather brings, with pregnant women, children, the elderly and people living with chronic conditions facing the greatest risk.

Related: Your Body Clock Knows Better Than Your Sleep Tracker looks at how the body responds when the environment shifts.

Elsewhere, preparations are accelerating. The African Development Bank's climate chief, Anthony Nyong, told Reuters the event could erase nearly 327 million dollars in African agricultural income this year and warned of what he called a "climate finance trap," in which governments raid health and education budgets to pay for disaster response.

With the peak of the event expected between October and December, CAF said it will work with national and local governments, development banks and other partners to blunt the impact in the hardest-hit areas.