03 Jun, 2016

MAP: Countries where you are most likely to die from extreme climate events

Others | GERMANY | 03 Jun, 2016
Published by : Eco Media Asia

Climate changes isn’t just something that will affect our future; it is already having an impact today, causing more extreme climate events such as flooding and droughts.

The world today is almost 5 times as dangerous and disaster prone as it was in the 1970s due to climate change, according to the World Meteorological Organisation.

Climate change is already having a big impact on human life. The map belows shows the countries which have the most deaths from extreme climate events. Countries need to be aware of this data and plan accordingly for an increasingly volatile climate.

Data for this research was taken from the Global Climate Risk 2016, which aims to “contextualize ongoing climate policy debates—especially the international climate talks—with real world impacts of the last year and the last 20 years”.

Key findings:

This research goes against previous research suggesting countries in the West will be less impacted by climate change than countries in Asia and Africa (view map for this research).

Russia, Italy, France, Spain, Luxembourg, Portugal, Belgium and Croatia all feature in the worst 20 countries globally for death rate from extreme climate on average per year over the last 20 years.

Russia, Italy, France, Spain, Germany and United States are also in the worst 20 countries for overall deaths per year on average over the last 20 years.

When looking at the 20 top economies, it is clear France, Italy, Russia and Spain have alarmingly high death rates from extreme weather events.

It is hoped this research will act as a timely reminder that all countries, whether rich or developing, need to do more to protect their citizens from extreme weather events which will become more frequent and deadlier as a result of climate change.

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Article by Jonathan Whiting at The Eco Experts UK
Images and source from Climate Risk Index & International Monetary Fund