Extreme weather events generate increasingly more losses year on year. The top 10 worst climate disasters that occurred in 2021 cost humanity over US$170 billion, a British development aid NGO has discovered although it noted that if every climate-related disaster was taken into consideration, this amount would be much higher.
A report published by the British NGO, Christian Aid, indicates that of the top 10 costliest disasters, Hurricane Ida generated the highest losses of about US$65 billion. It hit several parts of coastal United States in late August and early September last year followed by floods which occurred in summer in Central and Western Europe that caused damages of US$43 billion.
These events not only caused material damage but also led to deaths, injuries, and displacements. In the US, Hurricane Ida killed 95 people and the floods in Europe caused 240 deaths while the floods in the Chinese province of Henan killed 320 people, and over a million were displaced.
“The costs of climate change have been grave this year, both in terms of eye-watering financial losses but also in the death and displacement of people around the world. Be it storms and floods in some of the world’s richest countries or droughts and heatwaves in some of the poorest, the climate crisis hit hard in 2021. While it was good to see some progress made at the COP26 summit, it is clear that the world is not on track to ensure a safe and prosperous world,” said Dr, Kat Kramer, the report’s author, and Christian Aid’s climate policy lead.
The losses presented within the report come mostly only from insurance companies’ estimations so these are not comprehensive. The available figures show that the costs of weather-related disasters were higher in richer countries which is partially due to the fact that they have more valuable properties and losses are better assessed by insurers.
The report’s authors warned that the costs of climate-driven disasters will continue to rise. To prevent this trend, cutting greenhouse gas emissions globally as soon as possible is critical. They also argue that rich states must provide more climate funding to poor countries to enable them to tackle the rising costs of climate disasters and build up their resilience. Moreover, they called for more investment in energy transition and renewables pointing out that wealthy states should support the poorer in this process.
