In 2022, Weather & Climate Disasters Cost Americans $165 Billion
As extreme weather events occur more often, Americans – of all parties – increasingly believe that they are at least somewhat due to climate change. But how costly have these events become? And how much worse are they than in the 1980s, when global temperatures first began rising steeply?
In 2022, America experienced 18 weather and climate disasters that each cost at least one billion dollars of insured and uninsured losses. The total losses were $165 billion. The costliest disaster, Hurricane Ian, alone cost residents of Florida more than $100 billion. These costs are calculated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the same folks who forecast our weather.
Climate change accounts for a large part of these losses. Both the number of events and their cost has risen 6-fold since the 1980s, when the weather and climate costs averaged $20 billion a year in today’s dollars. The 1980s were when global temperatures began their steep ascent to nearly 2° F over the 1950-1980 average. Trends suggest that in the next decade, the US may experience average annual losses of $200 billion. A $500 billion dollar loss year would not be a surprise.
To put these losses in perspective, the Inflation Reduction Act will spend $36 billion a year to combat climate change. But the $165 billion in damages experienced in 2022 were more than four times that. This investment in climate change mitigation is a huge step in the right direction. But we should be spending more—this is not theories, forecasts, or ideology: this is common sense.
Global temperatures began rising steeply in the 1980s; so did the cost of weather and climate disasters in the US.
18 Weather & Climate disasters in 2022 each cost over $1 billion in losses: heat waves, flooding, wildfires, & storms (hurricanes, tornadoes, & snowstorms).
National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration, https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/billions/
Source: NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) U.S. Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters(2023).
https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/billions/
DOI: 10.25921/stkw-7w73