Millions of people around the world suffer in some way the consequences of climate change. Increasingly frequent extreme weather events such as heat waves , droughts or floods lead to a deterioration in water quality and even threaten the availability of water resources. In some areas, changes in ocean conditions have reduced fishing resources and, on the other hand, the increase in temperature in temperate zones favors the spread of certain diseases that were previously restricted to the tropical area.
The German observatory Germanwatch publishes its Global Climate Risk Index (CRI) every year to assess which countries have been most affected by extreme weather events. It is a useful tool to help understand the socio-economic impacts related to climate change and identify the greatest vulnerabilities to it, but, as its creators warn, it does not represent a complete classification system.
For example, the IRC does not take into account aspects such as rising sea levels, melting glaciers or acidification of the oceans. In addition, it is based on past data, and cannot be used to make projections about what will happen in the future, but should be understood as a warning to take adaptation measures to climate change.
“The data only reflects the direct impacts – direct losses and deaths – of extreme weather events, while, for example, heat waves, which are frequent in African countries, often produce much stronger indirect impacts – for example, as a result of droughts and food shortages. Finally, the index does not include the total number of affected people – in addition to the dead – since the comparability of said data is very limited ”, the report explains.
According to IRC 2020, in 2018 the countries most affected by climate change were Japan, the Philippines and Germany , and heat waves were the main causes of the damage. Furthermore, between 1999 and 2018, those most affected by extreme weather events were Puerto Rico, Myanmar and Haiti. Between 1999 and 2018, a total of 495,000 people died as a direct consequence of more than 12,000 extreme weather events.
