Across Asia and the Pacific, floods, typhoons, heat waves and droughts now strike at a frequency unimaginable a generation ago. Rising temperatures and seas are fueling fiercer storms, while rapid urban growth is pushing more and more families into harm's way. When disaster strikes, it is the less-developed countries that pay the price, and twice at that — first in the form of destruction of property and crops, and loss of jobs, and then as invisible costs of higher government borrowing.[....]