The ten most serious natural disasters caused by extreme weather events cost, in 2021, as much as 170 billion dollars. A figure that marks a sharp increase compared to the 150 billion of the previous year. This is explained in the annual report by British non-governmental organisation Christian Aid, according to which the growing weight of climate change is making the situation increasingly worse.

The report underestimates the total, as it considers only insured assets

These figures are, moreover, entirely partial, since the damages taken into account are exclusively those suffered by insured assets. It is clear that, if other costs were also factored in, the real figures would be considerably higher. Furthermore, precisely because of the methodology, the report focuses primarily on events that have struck wealthy nations, in which many people have taken out policies to insure, for example, properties or cars. In this regard, Christian Aid itself underlines that "some of the worst extreme weather events of 2021 actually struck poor countries."

One need only think of South Sudan, where flooding affected around 800,000 people but whose costs were not calculated due to the particularly low proportion of insured assets. The document goes on to explain that there were at least 1,075 victims, again across the ten events considered. Meanwhile, the people forced to abandon their homes and their land numbered more than 1.3 million.

Hurricane Ida tops Christian Aid's disaster rankings

Specifically, the costliest disaster according to the report was Hurricane Ida, which caused flooding in New York, resulting in 65 billion dollars' worth of damage. In second place, at 43 billion dollars, was the torrential rainfall that struck Germany and Belgium in July. This was followed by winter storm Uri, which caused severe damage to the electricity grid, particularly in Texas (total costs were estimated at 23 billion dollars).

Svein Tveitdal ✓ @tveitdal

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The Cost of This Year’s 10 Worst Climate Disasters: $170 Billion
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
Hurricane Ida was the costliest global disaster this year at $65 billion, according to new research
@christian_aid @CA_global @NRC_Egeland

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The study then cites the July floods in Henan province, China (17.6 billion), those concentrated in November in British Columbia, Canada (7.5 billion). And further still, the late cold snap in France in April (5.6 billion), which struck numerous vineyards, Cyclone Yaas in India and Bangladesh (May, 3 billion) and Typhoon In-Fa in China (July, 2 billion).