COPENHAGEN: Around 195,000 people have been killed by extreme weather conditions in Europe since 1980, and it caused 560 billion euros in economic loss, claimed European Environment Agency on Wednesday
“Around 195,000 fatalities have been caused by storms, floods, cold and heat waves, landslides, and forest fires” between 1980 and 2021, the EAA revealed in its report.
Of the 560 billion euros ($605 billion) in losses, only 170 billion, or 30 per cent, were insured, the EEA said, as it launched a new online portal collating recent data on the impact of extreme weather.
EEA expert Aleksandra Kazmierczak told AFP, “To prevent further losses, we need to urgently move from responding to extreme weather events to proactively preparing for them.”
The most recent data show that heatwaves were responsible for 15% of financial losses and 81% of fatalities. According to the EEA, Europe must take precautions to safeguard its aging population because senior citizens are more vulnerable to high temperatures.
“Most national adaptation policies and health strategies recognize the impacts of heat on cardiovascular and respiratory systems. But less than half cover direct impacts of heat like dehydration or heat stroke,” it said.
The summer of 2022 saw more deaths than usual in Europe following repeated heatwaves, but the 2022 deaths were not included in the data published on Wednesday.
The EEA said there were 53,000 more deaths in July 2022 than the monthly average in 2016-2019, up by 16 percent, though not all of those deaths were directly attributed to the heat.
Spain registered more than 4,600 deaths linked to the extreme heat in June, July, and August. Climate modeling has predicted longer, more intense, and more frequent heat waves.
In February 2022, the EAA said extreme weather killed 142,000 people and caused 510 billion euros in losses for 1980-2020. The increase in the figures released on Wednesday was partly because, in 2021, flooding in Germany and Belgium led to economic losses of almost 50 billion euros.
The considerable discrepancy in deaths was brought about by a shift in methodology in France and Germany, according to the EEA. According to the EEA, drought danger climbed five- to six-fold in 2022, a year in which forest fires consumed twice as much land as in recent years due to human-caused climate change.
Droughts could be very costly. Economic losses could rise from nine billion euros per year to 25 billion euros at the end of the century if the planet warms by 1.5C degrees.
According to scientific scenarios, that could climb to 31 billion euros if it warms by 2C and 45 billion euros if it warms by 3C. The consequences for agriculture could be “devastating,” the EEA warned.
According to the paper, farmers can reduce the adverse effects of droughts and temperature increases by modifying crop varieties, sowing dates, and irrigation schedules.
It predicted that yields and farm incomes would decrease without reforms. Flooding causes the most expensive damages, accounting for 56 percent of all economic losses, even though human casualties are significantly lower than average, only two percent of the total. —AFP/APP
