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By Maduka Nweke with Agency report
The efforts to make Nigerian cities likethose in the developed world are becoming a problem for both governments and private individuals. The 10 most financially costly events all had an impact of $3 billion or more. Most of these estimates are based only on insured losses, meaning the true financial costs are likely to be even higher, while the human costs are often uncounted.
Among them is Hurricane Ian which struck the US and Cuba in September, costing $100 billion and displacing 40,000 people. The drought and heatwave in Europe cost $20 billion, while floods in Pakistan that killed more than 1,700 people, displaced a further 7 million and, according to World Bank estimates, caused $30 billion in economic damage. Due to the difficulty of obtaining insurance, only $5.6 billion of these losses were covered.
While the report focuses on financial costs, which are usually higher in richer countries because they have higher property values and can afford insurance, some of the most devastating extreme weather events in 2022 hit poorer nations, which have contributed little to causing the climate crisis and have the fewest buffers with which to withstand shocks.
In the report, a second list of 10 climate disasters highlights some of these other climate events of 2022 which don’t make the list of insured losses but were just as damaging to communities or posed worrying future threats such as the Arctic and Antarctic heatwaves.
Christian Aid says these extreme events highlight the need for more urgent climate action. They underline the importance of the Loss and Damage Fund recently agreed at COP27 to provide financial support to people in developing countries who have suffered huge losses due to a climate crisis they have not caused. The international development charity is calling on world leaders to decide how the fund is managed and get money flowing into it
The extreme weather events caused severe human suffering from food insecurity, drought, mass displacements and loss of life. A devastating drought has affected more than 36 million people in East Africa, pushing many to the brink of famine. Whilst people in East Africa have been suffering from drought, in West Africa 1.3 million people were displaced by floods which killed more than 600 people in Nigeria, Cameroon, Mali and Niger.
Some of the disasters in 2022 hit rapidly, like February’s Storm Eunice, which set a new UK wind speed record of 122mph and Hurricane Fiona which struck the Caribbean and Canada in September and caused losses valued at more than $3 billion in just a few days. Other events took months to unfold, like the droughts in Brazil and China which lasted all year and cost $4 billion and $8.4 billion respectively.
No corner of the globe was spared from the costliest climate impacts in 2022 with all six populated continents represented in the top 10. These impacts were also felt by some of the biggest fossil fuel polluters. Hurricane Ian in the USA, Hurricane Fiona in Canada, and floods in Eastern Australia in February costing $7.5 billion all struck countries with some of the biggest per person carbon emissions. Elsewhere, floods in South Africa, and droughts and floods in China hit two of the world’s biggest coal producers.
