Even Elon Musk could not afford the cost of the world's worst climate disasters this year

The most costly disaster caused an estimated $140 billion in damage.

Every continent in the world experienced major climate disasters in 2022. Source: SBS News

KEY POINTS

• A new report reveals the top 10 most costly climate disasters in 2022.
• The most costly events include floods in Australia and Pakistan and Hurricane Ian, which hit the US and Cuba.
• The frequency and intensity of extreme weather events is increasing because of climate change, experts say.

The financial cost of the most destructive climate disasters of 2022 has been revealed, with a new report saying the top 10 each caused more than $4.5 billion in damage.

All six populated continents were represented in the top 10, which took in storms, floods and droughts, including the floods that devastated Australia's east coast in February and March, the Pakistan floods from June to September and Hurricane Ian, which lashed Cuba and the US in September and October.

The top 10 cost US$168 billion ($249 billion) in total, eclipsing the wealth of the Tesla and Twitter owner Elon Musk who is now worth US$148 billion ($219 billion) according to Bloomberg's Billionaires Index.

Relief and development agency Christian Aid authored the report. CEO Patrick Watt said the fact each disaster in the top 10 cost more than $4.5 billion is telling.

"[It] points to the financial cost of inaction on the climate crisis," Mr Watt said.

"Behind the dollar figures, lie millions of stories of human loss and suffering. Without major cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, this human and financial toll will only increase."

He said the human cost of climate change includes destroyed homes, loss of life and damage to the agricultural livelihoods of many.

Flooding in Lismore in March. The floods that hit east coast Australia made the report's top 10. Source: AAP / Jason O'Brien

Christian Aid is calling on world leaders to decide how the loss and damage fund agreed at the COP27 climate change conference in November is managed and to get money flowing into it.

The fund is designed to provide financial support to people in developing countries who have suffered huge losses due to a climate crisis.

The most costly climate disaster in 2022 was Hurricane Ian, which hit Cuba and the United States between September and October. It caused damage estimated at more than $150 billion, displaced over 40,000 people, and took 130 lives.

Floods in Australia displaced more than 60,000 people and cost more than $11 billion.

Floods in China cost $18 billion and displaced 239 people.

Devastating floods in Pakistan killed 1,739, and cost an estimated $8.3 billion.

Christian Aid said most of the amounts were estimates based on insurance figures.

The report found floods, cyclones and drought killed and displaced millions of people in parts of the developing world that have historically done very little to contribute to the rapid rise in greenhouse emissions. Source: SBS News

Both the "frequency" and "intensity" of extreme weather events are increasing due to climate change, resulting in "unprecedented economic and social impacts," Shouro Dasgupta, a researcher at RFF-CMCC European Institute on Economics and the Environment, said.

Mr Dasgupta said one of the major impacts of climate change is on food security.

An RV park in Florida one month after Hurricane Ian struck. Source: EPA / Cristobal Herrera-Ulashkevich

"Climate change is already undermining global food security, exacerbating the effects of the COVID-19, geopolitical, energy, and cost-of-living crises," he said.

The increasing frequency of heatwaves, which Mr Dasgupta says is due to climate change, resulted in an estimated 98 million more people suffering from "moderate or severe" food insecurity in 2020 compared to the 1981–2010 average, according to the recent Lancet Countdown 2022 report.

Professor Hayley Fowler is Professor of Climate Change Impacts at Newcastle University in the UK. She said temperatures have already risen by about 1.2C since pre-industrial times due to human activity. Warmer air can hold more moisture, making extreme rainfall events and flooding more likely, as well as hotter heatwaves.

"Climate change is thus making extreme weather events more intense when they do occur, and more persistent," Professor Fowler said. "This makes them more expensive and impactful, and means that managing their effects on communities is a huge challenge.”

The highest polluters in 2022 were China, the US, India, Russia and Japan, in that order.

African countries were not among the worst polluters, but are suffering from the consequences of richer nations' emissions.

Floods in Pakistan displaced millions of people and caused damage estimated at more than $8.3 billion. Source: AP / Fareed Khan

Mohamed Adow, Director of Nairobi-based energy and climate think tank, Power Shift Africa, said: “Here in Africa we are seeing the suffering that climate change is causing to those that have done the least to cause it."

"2023 needs to be the year we all wake up and start to put the world on the right track.”

Nushrat Chowdhury, a Climate Justice Policy Advisor in Bangladesh, said the catastrophes show the level of inequalities and vulnerabilities faced by the global South.

"This report shows just how badly it [loss and damage fund] is needed and the urgency with which we need to see it up and running," he said.

"The people flooded in Pakistan or victims of Cyclone Sitrang in my country of Bangladesh need this support to rebuild their lives.

“Many people in the global south dealing with these disasters cannot afford insurance to cover their losses and they often can’t rely on the state to act as a safety net. The fact they have done almost nothing to cause the climate emergency is why it is so unfair they are left to suffer without support.

"We must see that change in 2023.”