Publication Date January 11, 2022 | Climate Nexus Hot News

2021 Climate, Weather Disasters Killed Hundreds, Cost US $145 Billion, World $280 Billion

In this aerial photo, the remains of destroyed homes are seen in the aftermath of Hurricane Ida, Sept. 6, 2021, in Lafitte, La. Damage wrought by Hurricane Ida in the U.S. state of Louisiana and the flash floods that hit Europe last summer have helped make 2021 one of the most expensive years for natural disasters. Reinsurance company Munich Re said Monday, Jan. 10, 2022 that overall economic losses from natural disasters worldwide last year reached $280 billion. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
In this aerial photo, the remains of destroyed homes are seen in the aftermath of Hurricane Ida, Sept. 6, 2021, in Lafitte, La. Damage wrought by Hurricane Ida in the U.S. state of Louisiana and the flash floods that hit Europe last summer have helped make 2021 one of the most expensive years for natural disasters. Reinsurance company Munich Re said Monday, Jan. 10, 2022 that overall economic losses from natural disasters worldwide last year reached $280 billion. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

Twenty extreme weather disasters killed 688 people in the U.S. last year and collectively inflicted at least $145 billion in damage, NOAA reported Monday. 2021 was the deadliest year for climate extremes in a decade (even with, as Earther notes, likely under-estimated death tolls from the Pacific Northwest heatwave and Texas freeze), and NOAA also determined 2021 was the fourth-hottest year on record in the U.S. By far the most expensive disaster, Hurricane Ida left a $74 billion trail of destruction from Louisiana to New York and four months later residents are finally moving from tent camps into trailers. "2021 was, in essence, watching the climate projections of the past come true," Rachel Licker, a senior climate scientist at UCS, told CNN. "The fingerprints of climate change were all over many of the billion-dollar events that hit the US this year." Just from disasters that caused at least $1 billion in damage, extreme weather has inflicted $750 billion of damage on the U.S. in the past five years alone. The reports came as Joe Manchin (D.-W.Va.) and Senate Republicans hold up the Build Back Better Act and its $555 billion in climate and clean energy provisions. The NOAA reports also came the same day a Rhodium Group report found U.S. climate pollution jumped more than 6% from 2020 to 2021, while Munich Re announced that globally, natural disasters cost the world $280 billion in 2021, of which only $120 billion was covered by insurers.

(E&E NewsAPEartherCNNWashington Post $, Politico Pro $, AxiosThe HillReutersForbes; Ida trailers: Houma TodayAP; Munich Re: FT $, Bloomberg $, ReutersAP; Joe Manchin: Rolling Stone)

To receive climate stories like this in your inbox daily click here to sign up for the Hot News Newsletter from Climate Nexus: 

https://newsletter.climatenexus.org/hot-news-sign-up