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Thirty years ago, natural disasters cost about $14 billion annually, while today that number is closer to $40 billion, a report by World Bank's Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery reveals. Experts point to climate change as one cause of increased instances of natural disasters.

The Arbor Day Foundation and Cabela's Outdoor Fund have partnered together to replant in forests devastated by natural disaster. The reforestation efforts, which include the planting of 200,000 trees, are critical to preserving wildlife habitat. Record wildfire seasons in recent years have destroyed millions of trees in forests around the country. Many areas burned so severely that natural regeneration is not possible, making the need to replant necessary. Insect infestations, disease and weather events also destroy forests.

The goal of President Barack Obama's newly signed executive order related to climate change is to improve disaster-management efforts during severe weather events and other disasters, according to these articles. It establishes a task force that will look at how federal funds are allocated for building projects and suggest ways to make infrastructure more resilient

The report ranks 171 nations in terms of their risk. It has two components: the exposure they face from extreme events like typhoons, drought and earthquakes, and their ability to deal with those catastrophes, or their vulnerability. Sea-level rise is a key driver of the assessment. Many of the top 10 nations facing high risks are located along coastlines.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency will soon require states to examine the impacts of global warming on their communities as a condition for receiving federal disaster preparedness funding, according to draft guidelines released by the agency earlier this month.

An international team of scientists has proposed a series of deadlines by which humanity must take serious action to combat climate change if it is to meet the ambitious goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement, and stave off potential disaster. The team behind the study hopes that these points of no return will help inform debate, and spur leaders to take action to mitigate the threat of climate change while there is still time.

The big question for 2018 is whether last year's troubling trends for environment and development - rising global carbon emissions, multiple billion-dollar natural disasters, U.S. President Donald Trump's abandonment of climate action - will continue or turn in a more positive direction. As WRI President and CEO Andrew Steer noted during the Stories to Watch event in Washington on January 10, 2018, developments across several key topics will determine the answer.

The Congressional Budget Office says the government's spending on disasters could rise from today's $28 billion to $39 billion in current dollars by 2075, when 10 million US residents will be "substantially affected" by climate change. The CBO suggests requiring coastal residents to carry more of the financial burden of their risk, as curtailing emissions might not go far enough to address the problem.

It may come as a surprise to learn that we are in the middle of the third great coral bleaching event in human history. And scientists are calling it the severest yet. The last great bleaching event was in 1998 when 11% of the world's coral reef coverage was lost. Some areas like the Maldives lost as much as 90% of their reefs. This event is worse, possibly much worse. 38% of the planet's reefs will be affected, with 12,000 sq km of reefs killed off entirely according to experts.