Extreme weather events caused more than $165 billion in damage and resulted in at least 474 fatalities, the seventh most since 1980, a government report says.
There were 18 separate weather and
climate disaster events in the United States last year,
causing more than $165 billion in damage and making 2022 the
third-costliest year in records spanning more than four decades,
a federal report showed.
Last year was also the third-highest disaster count ever,
the Assessing the US Climate in 2022 report by the National
Centers for Environmental Information [NCEI] said on Tuesday.
The centres counted six severe storms, three tropical
cyclones, three hail events, two tornadoes and one each for
drought, flood, winter storm, and wildfire events in 2022,
resulting in the deaths of 474 people.
With a price tag of more than $165 billion, 2022 ranked third in total costs behind 2017 (hurricanes Harvey and Irma) and 2005 (hurricane Katrina), the NCEI said, and the figure could rise when the impact of a sprawling winter storm that hit the central and eastern US in December is fully factored in.
Hurricane Ian, which devastated parts of Florida in
September, was billed as the third-costliest US hurricane on
the 43-year record, costing $112.9 billion, while the
Western/Central Drought and Heat Wave was also one of the more
costly droughts on record, tallying up to $22.2 billion.
Worldwide, three of the decade’s costliest disasters,
including Hurricane Ian, happened in 2022.
“There are lots of success stories in 2022 that should
be highlighted. Even with Ian, we saw building codes work in some
of the hardest hit areas, but damage from water is still a pain
point,” said Andrew Siffert, senior vice president of
catastrophe analytics at re-insurance broker BMS Group.
“Another area of positive news was the California
wildfire season which saw minimal loss and relatively few large
fires causing insured loss the current rain is short-term good
news, but will no doubt raise the future wildfire risk with fine
fuel growth once the rains stop,” Siffert added.
At the UN climate conference in Egypt, COP27, countries
reached a landmark agreement on a Loss-and-Damages fund to help
poorer countries cope with climate-disaster costs, but there are
no further details yet on the size of the fund.
In 2023, countries plan to meet again at the next UN
climate summit, COP28, in Dubai, under extra pressure to hold
global warming to within 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Source: Reuters
US climate disasters racked up ‘third biggest ever’ bill in 2022
Source: News Achor Trending
0 Comments