The European Environment Agency has released data on extreme weather events over the past 40 years: 140,000 deaths and €520 billion in economic damages.
The toll is nothing short of catastrophic, both in human and economic terms. The latest data released by the European Environment Agency (EEA) paint a picture of more than 140,000 deaths and €520 billion in financial damages. This is the result of forty years of extreme weather events in Europe.
The EEA analysed climate disasters that occurred between 1981 and 2020, including heatwaves and cold waves, storms, impacts on water resources, droughts, river and coastal flooding, wildfires and more. The majority of victims — over 85 per cent — died as a result of heatwaves. The 2003 heatwave alone accounted for between 50 and 75 per cent of all deaths caused by weather and climate events over the past four decades.
According to the World Meteorological Organization, the number of meteorological disasters has increased globally over the past 50 years. It is estimated that, in Europe, 3 per cent of extreme climate and weather events were responsible for around 60 per cent of losses over the four decades under consideration.
Furthermore, data from the Catdat database (Damaging earthquakes and secondary effects), widely used in the European agency's report, show annual economic losses in constant growth over the decades: from €10 billion in the period 1981–1990 to €14.7 billion between 2011 and 2020. The number of catastrophic events also follows a steadily rising trend: from 392 episodes in the first decade, the figure has reached 1,220 in the most recent one.
In absolute terms, the highest losses are recorded in Germany, with 42,000 deaths and €107 million in losses. This is followed by France with 26,000 deaths and €99 million in damages. Then comes Italy, with 21,000 deaths and €90 million in losses. Per capita figures, however, place Switzerland among the worst-affected, followed by Slovenia. The lowest figures are those recorded in Liechtenstein, Turkey and Iceland.
Looking ahead, the G20 Risk Atlas produced by the Euro-Mediterranean Centre on Climate Change (Cmcc) provides various estimates of economic impacts depending on the different climate change scenarios considered. For example, under a relatively moderate temperature increase scenario, annual damages caused by river flooding alone are projected to amount to around €21 billion by the middle of the century. This figure would rise to €30–40 billion by the end of the century. Under a high-emissions scenario, losses from river flooding could reach €70 billion by the end of the century.
At the international level, the Sendai framework on disaster risk reduction, a United Nations body, has taken into account 38 indicators to measure progress in reducing damages from extreme weather events. In Europe, the European Commission has on this point drawn up a working document (called "Closing the climate protection gap — Scoping policy and data gaps"), which forms part of the broader European Adaptation Strategy, adopted in February 2021.
The document identifies the tools needed to achieve the highest possible level of resilience by 2050: the Commission encourages public-private partnerships to collect and share loss data going forward, so as to keep the European Environment Agency's indicator on economic losses and deaths caused by weather and climate events as up to date as possible.
But climate change is not the only factor determining economic losses and deaths: demographic trends and our capacity to adapt will also shape the climate's future. One thing is certain: the degree of variability in extreme weather events from one decade to the next is high. It is not possible to systematise all the effects with sufficient accuracy, nor to precisely estimate all the impacts of climate change. This is why it is important to close the climate protection and adaptation gaps with prevention plans across the entire continent.