Extreme weather phenomena has been killed in the past 30 years for more than 765,000 people

With the index, Germanwatch calculates the economic and human toll as a result of the impact of extreme weather phenomena, which are fueled by climate change. The heaviest countries in the period 1993-2022 are Dominica, China and Honduras. In 2017, for example, Hurricane Maria caused damage worth more than 270 percent of GDP of the island in the Caribbean Sea. In the past thirty years, China has been hit by more than 600 extreme weather phenomena that caused $ 706 billion in damage and cost 42,000 lives. With Italy (5th), Greece (7th) and Spain (8th), three countries of the European Union also adorn the top ten.

Belgium is in 18th place with an average of 181 deaths and 3,597 affected. The damage for our country is estimated at $ 131 million a year or $ 0.025 percent of GDP. With the heavy floods in 2021 in Wallonia, 39 people were killed and there was more than 2.5 billion euros in material damage.

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Storms caused the heaviest human toll (35 percent), for heat waves (30 percent) and floods (27 percent). Moreover, storms were also responsible for more than half of the economic damage caused.

“Human losses and economic costs as a result of climate change will continue to increase, unless there is a substantial shift in the ambition on mitigation and financial resources,” the report sounds.

As a result of the human being caused by humans, extreme weather phenomena are increasing, both in terms of frequency and intensity.