Last year was also the third-highest disaster count ever, the
Assessing the U.S. Climate in 2022 report by the National
Centers for Environmental Information said.
The centers 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.
Hurricane Ian, which devastated parts of Florida in September,
was billed as the third-costliest U.S. 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 U.N. 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 U.N. climate
summit, COP28, in Dubai, under extra pressure to hold global
warming to within 1.5 degrees Celsius.
(Reporting by Seher Dareen and Deep Vakil in Bengaluru; Editing
by David Gregorio)
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