List of 15 most devastating climate events includes B.C. flooding, heat wave

Two climate events that claimed lives in British Columbia are ranked among the world's most devastating this year.

A just-published report highlighting what it calls the 10 "most financially devastating" climate events in 2021, and five other significant incidents of extreme weather, includes this summer's heat wave along the west coast of North America, and the flooding that followed relentless rain across the southern half of B.C. in the fall. 

The report from U.K.-based Christian Aid, an anti-poverty organization that calls itself "part of a wider movement for social justice," ranked events based on their associated costs, and while the total toll of B.C.'s most recent natural disaster is still being calculated, it was high enough to make the top 10.

On that list was a mid-November storm that dumped a month's worth of rain on the province and resulted in weeks-long closures of major routes into and out of the most populated parts of B.C. Following the initial storm, there were several more days of heavy rain, associated with weather phenomena called "atmospheric rivers," causing further flooding and damage.

Several people are known to have died in a mudslide caused by the extreme weather, and 15,000 were forced to flee their homes. Tens of thousands of livestock died when a lake drained in the 1920s reformed as a Washington state river leapt its banks, spilling into the low-lying land.

According to the report published Sunday and titled "Counting the cost 2021: A year of climate breakdown," the cost has been estimated at $7.5 billion in insured losses.

Based on the ranking, it was the fifth most-expensive climate disaster in the world this year.

Those behind the report, as well as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, blamed climate change, saying that as global temperatures rise, the atmosphere holds more water vapour, leading to heavier downpours.

The top 10 list included only events with estimated costs of $1.5 billion or more.

Hurricane Ida, one of the largest ever to make landfall in the US., was at the top of the list, with a cost estimated at US$65 billion.

A million people lost power and thousands were forced to move. Flash flooding was reported in multiple states, and 95 Americans died.

Also on the list, ranked not by dollar amount but listed chronologically, were the March floods in Australia, which displaced about 18,000 people, a cold snap in France and a cyclone that hit India, Sri Lanka and Maldives, killing 198.

Those behind the report also highlighted a cyclone that killed 19 people in India and Bangladesh, mass flooding in Europe that claimed 240 lives, and a winter storm in Texas that claimed at least 215 lives. Flooding in China left 302 dead and more than a million people displaced, and a cyclone-prompted flood in China, the Philippines and Japan left five dead and caused 72,000 to flee their homes.

The report also looked at five other events, which carried a lower financial cost but still had a devastating impacts. On that list was the heat wave that hit the west coast of North America, including British Columbia, over the summer.

In the U.S. and Canada, a total of 1,037 people died as temperatures sored upwards of 40 C in some spots. The most recent data suggests nearly 600 of those people lived in B.C.

The unprecedented weather brought days of record-breaking heat, and likely led to the deaths of more than a billion marine animals, according to one estimate cited in the Christian Aid report.

The study's authors, Kat Kramer and Joe Ware, also highlighted the Parana river drought, South Sudan floods, Lake Chad crisis and East Africa drought on their list of other extreme weather events this year.

In a news release issued when the report was made public, Kramer called the costs of climate change "grave" both in terms of death and displacement and on a financial level.

"Be it storms and floods in some of the world's richest countries or droughts and heat waves in some of the poorest, the climate crisis hit hard in 2021," Christian Aid's climate policy lead said.

She and others with the agency noted some progress at this year's United Nations climate change conference in Glasgow, but said more action is needed to help those impacted by weather events like those witnessed in the last 12 months.