The top 10 of this year’s most extreme weather events and disasters that were caused by climate change cost a whopping total of $170.3 billion in damage.
Extreme weather brought misery to millions of people around the world in 2021. They also had huge financial impacts on countries worldwide.
Each of the most destructive events caused more than $1.5 billion in damage. Hurricane Ida, which hit the U.S. in August, was the most costly, with a price tag of $65 billion. Flooding across Europe came in as the second most costly weather event, costing $43 billion.
The third costly weather disaster was the Texas winter storm, at $23 billion. In poorer regions, storms and flooding that were caused by climate change led to mass displacement of people and severe suffering.
The new study released on Monday was conducted by U.K. charity Christian Aid. The organization said that the estimates are based on insured losses and that the real numbers are even higher.
The report said that 2021 will be the sixth time natural disasters around the world have cost more than $100 billion. All six times this has occurred has happened since 2011.
The organization’s climate policy lead and author of the report, Kat Kramer, said that climate change has caused extreme, grave costs this year, not only in financial losses but also the displacement and death of people worldwide.
The top ten, in order, were: Hurricane Ida, European floods, Texas winter storm, Henan floods in China, British Columbia floods, France’s “cold wave,” Cyclone Yaas in India and Bangladesh, Australian floods, Typhoon In-fa in China, Philippines and Japan, and finally, Cyclone Tauktae in India, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives.
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