Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to Chris Leithner, founder of Leithner & Co Investment Advisors, the apparent upward trend in weather disaster insurance payouts disappears when you correct for inflation and rising population.
Will climate change soon make Australia “uninsurable”?
CHRIS LEITHNER
Leithner & Company LtdTo many investors, it’s indisputable: a warming climate has caused the number and severity of natural disasters to increase. Moreover, this supposedly rising tide of devastation threatens Australians and their insurers. These claims are being repeated increasingly frequently and fervently, yet a glaring weakness accompanies them: they almost invariably lack credible – indeed, often any – supporting evidence. In contrast, I’ve analysed this country’s most authoritative source of relevant data, the Insurance Council of Australia’s Historical Catastrophe Database, and this article summarises my results.cause; consequently, climate change – man-made or otherwise – can’t be causing it.
…
Are natural disasters becoming more frequent in Australia?
I grouped the 302 events that meet this definition into their financial year of occurrence and summed the number of events per FY (all subsequent references to “year” mean FY). Figure 1 plots the results. At first glance, the number of NHCEs appears to be increasing over time. The average is 5.6 per year; before the mid-1990s, the annual number was usually below-average; since then, it’s mostly been above the mean, especially in 2016 (but not, it’s worth noting, in 2020 or 2021: their numbers are the lowest in almost 20 years). As a result, the trend line slopes significantly upwards – and its rate of increase is accelerating.
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In 1967 the Gold Coast’s population (72,000) was just one-tenth of today’s (710,000) and Cyclone Dinah missed it by more than 100 kilometres. If it recurred today it would wreak almost $5 billion of damage and rank among the costliest natural disasters in Australian history (Figure 6). Together with the severe hailstorm that struck the region that year, their combined normalised cost ($6.3 billion) was double that of Brisbane’s flood in 1974.
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The key point in Table 1 generalises. Figure 2 plots the average damage per NHCE since 1967 – and corroborates my doubt that the actual (as opposed to the recorded) number of NHCEs is rising. Its mean is ca. $350 million and its trend is weakly negative. I don’t infer that NHCEs are becoming less destructive over time; rather, I infer (and will shortly confirm) that the damage they wreak is roughly constant and the ICA’s propensity to count them has risen. In other words, it didn’t record minor events in the 1960s and 1970s, but has done so since the 1990s.
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Do these results enable us to reject categorically any possibility that the frequency and severity of natural disasters is mounting? They don’t. Nor can we be certain that our conclusions will extend into the future. Equally, however, proponents of the received wisdom must be humble and honest. They cannot credibly claim – as they nonetheless routinely and emphatically do – that natural disasters’ frequency and severity are increasing, that climate change underlies these rises, and that consequently, they threaten insurers. Hard data simply doesn’t support these glib assertions; quite the contrary, they undermine them.
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My results won’t surprise Warren Buffett. That’s because they corroborate with Australian data what he has found in American and global contexts. As the founder, head and biggest shareholder of one of the world’s biggest insurers and reinsurers, his view should carry much weight – and unlike most experts, he has plenty of skin in the game. On 3 March 2014, he told CNBC:
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Read more: https://www.livewiremarkets.com/wires/will-climate-change-soon-make-australia-uninsurable-2022-01-09
Chris Leithner does not reject the possibility climate change could create problems in the future. What his analysis demonstrates is claims that climate change is making weather disasters worse are not supported by historical trends, once you correct for inflation and population growth.
No surprise to thinking people – but very glad he said it!
Bingo!!
+20
.
Exactly like Climate Scientology itself
Zig Zag
Climate Scientology, like Scientology that owes its foundation to a science fiction fraud, is truly an appropriate designation and good branding. As most climate alarmists do not want to engage in logical debates perhaps this kind of branding will help to discredit their views.
I’ve been posting this term everywhere for months. Mockery is the best cure, Scientology best describes this faith not just in the unfounded whacky beliefs but even more in its insular nature, its cult nature, the way they attack unbelievers but especially how they go after apostates.
Climate Scientology fits best
Something’s missing.
What did Warren Buffett tell CNBC on 3 March 2014?
I went to the linked article and found this:
“On 3 March 2014, he told CNBC:”
“In his annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway’s shareholders (28 February 2016), Buffett added:”
Given a choice between believing a bloviating professor or believing Buffett, the choice is easy. Buffett probably isn’t right 100% of the time but that’s the way to bet.
From the link:
________________________________________________
On 3 March 2014, he told CNBC:
The effects of climate change, if any, have not affected the insurance market … The public has the impression that because there’s been so much talk about climate that events of the last ten years from an insured standpoint … have been unusual. The answer is they haven’t … I love apocalyptic predictions – they will help to increase rates.
And also our profits!
Indeed, that was what he was hinting at:
Increased rates with no increase in risk = increase in profits.
More wise words from Buffett:
Anthropogenic warming will be net beneficial and anthropogenic greening is miraculously cornucopic.
It’s that simple, folks. This alarmist madness of the crowd has massively deformed society’s psyche.
Our descendants will understand, and they will mourn the madness that will have diminished their lives.
============
Yes, it should be a core element of every school curriculum that students read (and comprehend) Charles Mackay’s “Popular Delusions and The Madness Of Crowds”,
and then also take on board George Santayana’s advice (repeated by Winston Churchill and others –
“Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”.
Warming benefits the biome,
Cooling harms, at all times;
Furthermore this history
Has rhythm, and it rhymes.
================
Many fruit trees need the cold part of the year to produce good fruit in the next growing season.
There are an abundance of fruit trees in Amazonia that never experience cold but produce ample fruit. Many of our common northern temperate fruit trees such as apples and peaches grow in every continental state across wide climatic zones. There are few if any fruit trees in boreal climates.
The alleged benefits of cold are vastly overstated.
I doubt those fruit trees mind a deg C rise. What’s worse for fruit trees is a cold snap as the flowers are opening. Last year, we didn’t get that cold snap- and it was warm and very wet here in MA, and my fruit trees were so happy and produced so much fruit that the branches were bent to the ground- especially my pear trees.
Citris fruits in Arizona and other hot climates don’t receive an annual freeze, yet produce fruit year round without a definite cycle. Having lived in Phoenix, I’ve seen this first hand.
There are lots of seeds of plants that need to cold stratify in order to germinate next spring.
I don’t see us having any lack of cold period here in canada anytime soon.
Just went thru 3 weeks of -30 here on the prairies, so much fun
Someone has postulated mass formation psychosis. Joe Rogan did an interview about it and (as far as I can tell) it was deleted by YouTube and Spotify.
All kinds of people are jumping up and down trying to debunk the phenomenon. Hmm. If it’s getting that much flak, it must be over the target.
As far as I can tell, the conditions are currently right for mass insanity.
There may be light at the end of the tunnel. George Friedman says we’re in the Storm Before The Calm and we’ll emerge some time around 2030. I pray he’s right.
When the bubble pops, it will disappear incredibly fast, like 80s fashion styles. I think future historians will find our period’s obsession with climate change confusing, just as we find past periods of delusion or cruelty borderline inexplicable.
I agree that its a mass hysteria. But I am not at all sure it will disappear fast. There is an element of the same mechanism that drives fashions of dress – a natural desire to conform to the early adopters one knows about.
But the difference from dress fashions are more significant than the similarities. Climate has become one of three identity defining issues, the other two being gender and race. Its a very long term thing – its been going for decades and it has generated huge long term projects, like the wind farms. Its not something that individual decisions have much effect on.
When the world stopped wearing bell bottoms, all that had to happen was that people one at a time stopped. Here however what is needed is substantial changes in behavior and policy by governments. And there is now a massive climate industry lobbying hard to prevent them.
Unlike fashion, it also has a religious component. In fact, religious attitudes predominate in it. You can probably predict with high accuracy from what people feel about gender what they feel about both climate and race, and this applies to any of the three issues.
The split also has taken on the intransigence and fury of religious divides. Not just on the climatist side, either. We have essentially a split of attitudes which define who we are, what tribe we are in.
Its hard for people to see this because they are not used to religious differences being about matters of scientific fact. When we think back to the wars of religion in the Reformation and Counter Reformation, they seem to be safely in a past world where transubstantiation was the thing they fought over. Now its not likely to be about religious doctrine, at least in the West. What was formerly expressed as religious doctrinal divergencies now takes the form of differences about scientific or quasi scientific theories.
The consequence of its being a new version of religion is that its not refutable by events or facts. So my own prediction is that no amount of contrary evidence to the global warming theory will persuade any of the believers that its wrong. On the contrary, the immediate effect of contrary evidence will be to strengthen their belief and increase the ferocity of their denunciations of unbelievers. As I have said before the best guide to what we are going through is ‘When Prophecy Fails’.
Similarly, no amount of evidence on the results of medical transition as a treatment for gender dysphoria will persuade the trans movement that there is anything wrong with it. No amount of rejection of Critical Race Theory by Black communities will dissuade the believers. No amount of historical evidence will persuade the left that Jan 6 was a riot rather than a seriously planned attempted coup.
I am afraid its going to get worse before it gets better. We are going to see more vast fields of useless wind turbines continue to be erected at vast expense, with their only use being as testimony to the righteousness and belief of those who propose and subsidize them.
This has a long way to run yet. And a lot of money and hate, too.
You used a straw man regarding Jan. 6. It was neither “just a riot” nor was it a “seriously planned coup”.
No kidding Bruce, the people let into the Capitol walked right by priceless art just so they could sit in a chair.
Agreed. But my point was, those on the left who believe it was a seriously planned coup, and there are many, will not have their minds changed by evidence. Because this has become one of the articles of faith.
Its like the Communion of Saints. Its one of the things you are required to believe to be one of us, and no amount of argument or evidence on the point will allow you to change your mind.
Michel, there are signs that many “true believers” among scientific practitioners of crisis climate science are deeply worried that they may have wasted entire careers on non-science and that the huge economic misapplication of resources that has impacted the lives of the world’s poor and even middle class, will be layed at their feet.
The first shock was the unexpected 18yr ‘Dreaded Pause’, a period virtually as long as the 1980-1997 end of century warming that had been such a big deal. This brought on the so-called Climate Blues that ended the careers of a worrying number of climate scientists. Kevin Trenberth in the UEA email dump stated that re the Pause, that it was a travesty that they couldn’t explain it.
No longer were they “true believers. Up until 2007, 1998 super el Niño did not, to their disappointment, break the record Ts of the late 1930s -early 1940s. In 2007, Hansen just before retirement pioneered the fiddling of temperatures to put things ‘right’. The 30s 40s high was pushed down 0.6°C, the “Ice Age Cometh” 35yr deep cooling had its coldest end at 1979 raised up ~0.5°C (how could rising CO2 cause this cooling sceptics had asked). The rest of the climateers jumped on this new tool. The mission was now to save the foundering scientific hypothesis.
Karl at NOAA, similarly adjusted the ‘Pause’ out of existence in 2015 on the eve if his retirement. A sigh of relief to the beleaguered was the following el Niño that would have interrupted the Pause anyway. Now a new Pause may be in the making presently ~8 yrs long and coinciding with forecasts based on swings in natural variability by a few researchers.
Tired, perhaps, of playing nerve wracking Climate Whack-a-Moley, and stunned by anomaly forecasts for a decade ago that had proved to be 200 – 300% too high as measured by observations, GISS modeler, Gavin Schmidt admitted that models have proven to be away too hot and “they don’t know why”.
Brit and EU gov have created a nightmare for their citizens with onset of a cold winter with failing renewables and shortage of fossil fuel even at prevailing astronomical prices. Protests and a referendum on this and looming costs for power, heating and shuttered industries, means citizens have awakened. The climate enterprise will soon be on the rocks.
I hope you are right. Perhaps the place to watch is the UK and its Net Zero project. If the UK abandons it and, most importantly, gives as justification that there is no climate emergency, that would be a clear sign that its over.
If the UK abandons it on the grounds that it will have no effect on global emissions and so cannot be justified, that would be a substantial sign that its ending.
If they abandon it on the grounds that its not practically doable, that would be a step, but a small one.
However what I suspect we will see is no admissions of this sort at all. I think we’ll continue to hear governments of either persuasion (and even more the SNP) parrot the Guardian/BBC line, but just delay implementation. Fudge and obfuscate.
The thing to watch is the Net Zero legislation. If the country really is going to ban ICE engines, its going to have to put legislation to Parliament fairly soon. Perhaps the key thing to watch here is the proposal to ban the installation of any new oil-fired heating boilers in 2025. That is close enough that we will need legislation in the next year or so.
I suspect what will happen is that the goals will be kept in place, the rationale will continue to be recited, but the dates for implementation will be moved back, or maybe there will be a discreet silence about them.
The thing to watch is the oil fired boiler 2025 legislation. If that is put to Parliament and passes and is implemented, we will know that the only thing that will deter them will be a human welfare disaster, and they will be rushing headlong into it.
Its hard to predict. I cannot really believe they will do it. But if asked to advise my acquaintance who are reliant on oil fired heating, I tell them that the only safe thing to do if they have an old boiler is replace it in the next couple of years. That way they can reasonably expect to get another 15+ years reliable warmth from the new one. Its insurance. Confronted with a government which on this issue (along with the establishment media) appears to have lost its mind, is this a matter on which you can afford to do without insurance?
Probably not.
Also, if its still possible, avoid condensing boilers. Another story of an engineering idiocy motivated by the green mania.
deleted by Spotify? are you sure? I read that link- doesn’t seem like something threatening to the world- can’t see why even YouTube would care
It seems if the right people complain about a site it will be targeted. The satellite series has been a discipline restricting data jiggering in the79 to present part of the data sets. It’s one reason why climateers go wholesale on the distal end to to tilt the temperature series more steeply up.
I’ve wondered if the small upward jiggers of recent temperatures are just within the margin of satellite T error on the high side. This would mean that the minus part of the error is missing. Remember NASA’s set curated by Mearns. They were very close to UAH data until 2015 when Karl terminated the Pause. Egged on by fellow climateers, he altered his satellite set and went to lengths to explain that the ground sets were more accurate! Even then, the two sets didn’t deviate far.
Speaking from memory, I recall that earlier IPCC reports said warming was going to be economically net-beneficial into the 2050’s. Now, only a few years later, with less warming than forecast, we’re all immediately going to hell in a handcart. Some things just don’t add up.
It is not in the insurers interest to stop the hype, it makes it easier to justify increasing policy costs even if they don’t have the need to do so.
Even better , they sell more policies with higher sum insured….and it seems in Australia exclude certain risks like river inundation as that can be fobbed off onto government backed risk pools
It is very worrying that statements coming from politicians at all levels of government, Deep State bureaucrats (especially Federal agency heads), U.S. National Climate Assessments, NGO propaganda, hysterical activist pronouncement and CliSciFi practitioners (paid activist/scientists) are spouting demonstrably false, self-serving lies. The fact that responsible scientists and economists don’t loudly and publicly call them out on their falsehoods is an inditement of our current political and scientific systems. The vicious treatment of people trying to correct the record in academia, government and its contractors and even nominally independent businesses is a shame of our collective society. I hope history will treat this period unkindly.
When your business depends on assessing weather damage you have a reason to be accurate. Not so much for the people that depend on the uncertainty to foment anxiety.
Who’d a thunk it?
There has been so much talk. That’s the problem. Just from the amount of talk people begin to think things are worse than they are. It’s like that survey among college students that asked what did they think was the percentage of LGBTQ in society. Some replies gave the LGBTQ population to be as high as 50%. So much talk. So few facts.
“Just from the amount of talk people begin to think things are worse than they are.”
Pretty much always the case. Covid panic, CAGW, your example, on and on.
Howzabout this for a little fix:
Quote:”What his analysis demonstrates is claims that
climate change is making weather disasters worsetemperature and CO2 rises are not supported by historical trends, once you correct for inflation and population growth.HelloDataminers, what about that?
And the connection is very very simple without the magical & imagined properties of the new Phlogiston being invoked at all
All tose new people= 60 million annually, or 6 new Londons if you prefer.
All those new people are living in increasing sprawling cities, plus effectively brand new cities.
Cities are Hot Places, surely Shirley, could could 6 new Londons, plus associated road infrastructure, every year NOT ne having and effect of tempertures
It gets worse, all those people must be eating something so that means that farming, tillage and cultivation of soil/dirt MUST be getting more intensive and extensive.
Those execises of tillage involve leaveing large area of low Albedo soil lying about for extended periods of time and most especially during late spring and early summer, exactly when the sun is highest and strongest.
Is it really totally impossible that the increased areas of low Albedo ‘Earth surface’ also contribute to higher temperatures
Worse and worser still – vast areas of what was green and thus high Albedo forest are being felled and burned, leaving behind ever more low Albedo dirt.
C.on peeps, 20,000 tonnes daily of wood pellets, just for Drax alone. Those wood pellets do not just ‘fall out of the sky completely gratis & free’ – they involve the lowering of Albedo across very large areas of ground.
All those things I describe above are most certanly NOT = ‘Natural Variation’ and can not, should not, be simply brushed aside as the currently are.
It get even worser and worser and worser..
Does anyone, did anyone, ever visit this link and get the document?
Did they see this bit in the introduction…
Quote:”Soil CO2 fluxes add almost 10% of the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere each year, and the flux is 10 times larger than CO2 released from fossil fuel burning
(Raich and Tufekcioglu, 2000).”
The flux from soil is ten times greater than fossil fuel emissions
Ah but you say, that article/research is talking about Switchgrass. Switchgrass is horrible awful and invasive stuff, everybody hates it and is constantly trying to pull it up, plough it in or simply poison the stuff. It can have nothing to do with Climate
Maybe yes all that’s true but it is still = A Grass
Grass as what covers vast areas of Earth’s surface – including such things as Italian & Perennial ryegrasses, as grown in the UK for livestock fodder. Because of price pressures coming from consumers and regulatory pressures from Government, are very extensively overgrazed
Worsest thing evah, are not wheat, corn and rice also grasses *AND* are grasses that are cultivated across vast areas of Earth surface
Would not the current and increasing population be eating those grasses and in doing so causing, as the article says, a ten times greater than fossil burning, increase in atmospheric CO2
Now do we see why there was completely No Blip in the Mauna Loa data during Covid lockdown?
All through lockdown, grassland continued ’emitting’ at ten times the rate fossils were burned even before or after lockdown. The lockdown blip was/is completely lost in the noise of the grassland emissions.
All of the above are responsible for both rising CO2 levels and also the (as recorded & adjusted) rising temperatures
CO2 is just coming along for the ride, it is NOT the cause of the rising temps – the real actual physics of Entropy, the 2nd Law plus the words of both Carnot and Stefan say that it can not be also
CO2 has got to be just about the most benign, inert, gentle, non-reactive and non-radiative substance under the sun.
It simply can not do what the GHGE claims it does
“C.on peeps, 20,000 tonnes daily of wood pellets, just for Drax alone. Those wood pellets do not just ‘fall out of the sky completely gratis & free’ – they involve the lowering of Albedo across very large areas of ground.”
Too bad you didn’t bother to find out the truth on this subject. The forests that the pellets come from ARE GOING TO BE CLEAR CUT whether or not there is a market for pellets. Let that sink in. The American southeast forests are intensely managed for multiple products. They are mostly even aged forests. They’re planted, thinned a few times, then clear cut. The better trees go into lumber for construction, furniture, paper, other products, and what’s left is either burned on the site in huge piles or turned into pellets. Not producing pellets isn’t going to result in beautiful, old forests. Pellets are merely a by product for the forestry businesses- the low end of their trade- something to move along as mere weeds. After the land is clear cut- it is planted quickly with more trees. Burning these weeds on the site result in actual air pollution. And, yes, I’ve said it many times, better to burn coal- but just because your idiot politicians don’t like coal is no reason to stupidly hate pellets. At least they are truly renewable and the power produced is far more dependable than wind and the sun.
It is refreshing to read a sensible statement coming from a business representative although it may be a common sentiment but rarely expressed.
The Climate Council (Australia) have a report that claims:‘the cost of extreme weather in Australia has more than doubled since the 1970s, and totalled $35 billion over the past decade’.
In it they claim to adjust for inflation but not for population growth which is bizarre given they acknowledge Queensland is by far the state most affected by weather extremes and the population of Queensland has growth from around 1.8 M in 1970 to around 5.2 M in 2021, much of that population growth being along the vulnerable coastline.
Climate Council; a lobby group for renewables with nothing honest about them. The same for The Australia Institute.
The insurers want the government’s to carry the risk of climate type events…river inundation especially
Insurance is a field in which a lot of people have their money. It is therefore an impeccable bellwhether.
Whether or not it’s a bellwether depends on the weather
depends on the “whether!”
Well lets see – floods in the US, Germany, China, super typhoons in the Philippines, wildfires, all the climate disasters across the globe of the latter half of 2021 – have they not done more damage over a wider area?
You might like to comment on two of Paul Homewood’s posts:- 26th. December 2021 called “BBC Climate Check …. ” and “Typhoon Trends” on 6th. January. You might find answers there.
They did more damage because there is more stuff to damage as explained above.
But you never respond to requests to look at the data, do you?
Math is hard.
even if that were true, what’s it prove other than nature is extremely variable- it doesn’t prove that its due to “carbon pollution”- as noted by others, there are a lot more people who live in areas prone to such natural events
No
Of course, you could try to prove me wrong, but you won’t even try
Nope.
Next question?
Well let’s see how costs need to be assigned….
UK developers told they must foot bill for unsafe cladding – ABC News (go.com)
“Super typhoon”? I’ll throw that right in the box with “polar vortex”, “derecho”, “super volcano”, and “pandemic”. All terms that at some point had a clear definition (in scientific circles) but were appropriated by the walking dead media to stir up fear and danger.
It has been pointed out to griff a number of times that the worst typhoon to ever hit the Philippines was Typhoon Haiphong in late September 1881 and that the counry is the most exposed in the world to tropical storms with about 20 cyclones entering the Philippines area of responsibility every year. Typically 5 of these are destructive.
The “super typhoon” earlier this year was a media construct.
Don’t look up from the troll script….
BP and Shell could face windfall tax as UK energy bills spike – CNN
” have they not done more damage over a wider area?”
Once you factor in inflation and population growth, the answer is a very definite *NO*. Look at the data (something you never do) and you’ll see the storms are not “getting worse” contrary to what the kool-aid you’ve been drinking would have you believe. What is getting “worse” is the amount of man-made structures (and the people living in them) that are situated in areas prone to damage from those kinds of weather events.
In short, the path of destruction is the same size as it’s always been, it’s just we humans have packed more of our things and people in way of that path.
Put another way. A typhoon hits an unpopulated island 50 years ago: cost is pretty much ZERO. Same size typhoon hits the same island today, only now it has millions of dollars in buildings and many people living on it: cost is much higher in both money and peoples lives. That’s not the climate “getting worse” it’s more people living in areas prone to such events.
The policy disaster is here…..
UK utility apologizes for advice to cuddle pets to stay warm – ABC News (go.com)
Griff, can you post about the tens of thousands of locations on the planet that didn’t have an above average weather event this year?
You list the same half dozen above average events over and over but no comment on the other 99% of the planet.
Does climate change only affect slivers?
Pielke, Jr. has been saying the same thing for a long time.
Someone who deals in reality tells the truth. Imagine that. He in Australia? Bet government thugs there are going to drop a hammer on him.
In Tucson, AZ an area of the city was banned for residential construction owing to risk of flooding. People protested, wrote letters, and called city government demanding access to this beautiful area. The powers that be relented, homes were built, people took up residence. Rains fells, flooding ensued. People protested, wrote letters, and called city government demanding relief. I would imagine that most of the deaths and destruction caused by natural disasters are from people living in areas that they shouldn’t and/or failing to take steps to mitigate these events.
It happens….
2017
Hundreds dead after massive Colombia mudslide (timesunion.com)
and the UN excuses happen
Toll from deadly Colombia mudslide hovers at 200 – Breitbart
Just goes to prove, there is nothing quite as effective as reality!
Same findings in Canada as reflected in Canada in a Changing Climate: National Issues Report by the Government of Canada. (summary: https://www.cityfloodmap.com/2021/06/national-issues-report-identifies.html) – growth in assets is identified as the driving factor in increasing losses.
Released in 2021 the government report reviewed the cause of rising extreme weather costs (report link: https://changingclimate.ca/national-issues) contradicting common media explanations for the rise since the ealry 1980’s, e.g. :
From page 349 (my bold):
“Costs related to extreme weather events are increasing (see Section 6.4)
Costs associated with damage from extreme weather events in Canada are significant and rising, largely due to growing exposure and increasing asset values. The scale of costs suggests that households, communities, businesses and infrastructure are not sufficiently adapted to current climate conditions and variability.”
From page 365:
“6.4 Costs related to extreme weather events are increasing
Costs associated with damage from extreme weather events in Canada are significant and rising, largely due to growing exposure and increasing asset values. The scale of costs suggests that households, communities, businesses and infrastructure are not sufficiently adapted to current climate conditions and variability.
The number of extreme events has increased since 1983, although the distribution of these events across Canada varies significantly, with Alberta being affected the most. Studies on the attribution of such events in Canada indicate that climate change is increasing the likelihood of certain types of extreme weather events, and may be playing a role in the trend of growing losses from such events. However, the majority of rising losses related to extreme weather events are the result of growing exposure and rising asset values. The scale of costs suggests that there is an adaptation gap or deficit, whereby households, communities, businesses and infrastructure are not sufficiently adapted to current climate conditions and variability.”
The Canadian insurance industry has indicated that early loss data was ‘cobbled together’ and not very reliable. See industry newsletter (link: https://issuu.com/iclr/docs/cat_tales_march_april_2018 and
page 5 article “Big data? How about just starting with data?”). That is the key message really – start with data.
US hit by 20 separate billion-dollar climate disasters in 2021, NOAA report says | Climate crisis | The Guardian
The US was battered by 20 separate billion-dollar climate and weather disasters in 2021, one of the most catastrophic climate years on record which led to at least 688 deaths, according to the annual report of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Damage from the year’s 20 most costly disasters, which included thousands of wildfires burning across western states, frigid temperatures and hail storms in Texas, tornadoes in the south-east, and tropical storms saturating the east coast, totaled around $145bn.
This makes 2021 the third costliest extreme weather year on record, with four tropical storms – Elsa, Fred, Ida and Nicholas – accounting for just over half the total price tag.
Again, once you factor in inflation and population growth, your “climate disaster” story evaporates like the illusion it is. Take the same storms in the same areas 50 or 100 years ago, and the costs would be a fraction of what they are today because they’re be less people and less buildings & infrastructure in the weather events path.
If a tree falls in the woods, it doesn’t cost you any money. If a tree falls on your home, the repair bill will be high. 50 or 100 years ago, the tree was in the woods, today the woods have been replaced with a housing development and the tree is in someone’s front yard.
This is what NOAA says in its FAQ
“Are US billion dollars disasters increasing in frequency and cost?
Yes, the number and costs of disasters are increasing over time due to a combination of increased exposure (ie, values at risk of possible loss), vulnerability (ie, where we build; how we build) and that climate change is increasing the frequency of some types of extremes that lead to billion dollar disasters. More specifically, these trends are further complicated by the fact that much of the growth has taken place in vulnerable area like coasts and river floodplains Vulnerability is especially high where building codes are insufficient for reducing damage from extreme events.”
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/billions/faq
So NOAA itself acknowledges that climate change is the least important factor in the growth of the cost of disasters as John Endicott also explained to you.