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Feld in Lower Saxony: In recent years it has been far too dry in Germany
Photo: Fritz Rupenkamp / Countrypixel / imago images
Since the early 2000s, Germany has been one of the countries most severely affected by extreme weather.
This emerges from the global climate risk index presented by the environmental organization Germanwatch.
According to this, Germany ranks 18th in a long-term comparison among the countries that had to struggle the most with heat waves, droughts and storms.
At the top of the list are Puerto Rico, Myanmar, and Haiti.
The climate risk index, published annually, is based on a database from the reinsurer Munich Re and information from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
It compares the number of deaths and property damage caused by extreme weather - both in absolute terms and in relation to the number of inhabitants and gross domestic product.
Developing countries hardest hit
The database is one of the most comprehensive statistics there is on the subject, but it has some statistical fuzziness.
For example, there is a lack of information about heat damage in large parts of Africa.
The analysis does not reveal what role climate change plays in extreme weather, emphasizes Germanwatch.
However, the results are a warning.
Climate researchers assume that the rising temperatures make extreme weather events more likely and more intense.
According to the analysis, more than 10,700 people died in Germany from 2000 to 2019 as a result of extreme weather events - mainly as a result of heat waves.
The economic damage for Germany, adjusted for purchasing power, averaged the equivalent of 3.54 billion euros annually.
In a global comparison, however, extreme weather has caused considerable damage, especially in developing countries.
Almost half a million people have died as a result over the past 20 years, the report said.
The global economic damage amounts to a total of around 2.1 trillion euros.
Promised help does not arrive
In 2019, cyclone »Idai« caused severe damage.
It was the most devastating hurricane ever observed in the western Indian Ocean.
Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi together had more than 1,100 fatalities and, adjusted for purchasing power, recorded total damage of more than 5.7 billion euros.
With a view to the international climate summit on Monday and Tuesday, Germanwatch appealed to industrialized nations to give more support to developing countries that were particularly hard hit by extreme weather and to provide them with additional funds.
In the Paris Climate Agreement in 2015, wealthier countries committed to paying the equivalent of 80 billion euros per year to poorer countries for climate protection.
However, according to current studies, the actual payments are far lower.
Poorer states, "which have contributed the least to the climate crisis, now urgently need financial and technical support," said David Eckstein, one of the authors of the Climate Risk Index.
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