A new report from Germanwatch has found that nearly half a million people have died over the last twenty years due to effects associated with climate-related disasters, with Puerto Rice being the region suffering the greatest impact, according to an article in Scientific American. Other regions suffering among the most severe effects included Myanmar, Haiti, and other nations strongly exposed to threats like tropical storms.
The report noted that wealthier nations including the US also faced significant threats from climate-driven disasters, but had greater resources on which to draw to harden threatened areas or aid in recovery. “Developed countries are also affected, and they have to ramp up their mitigation and adaptation action very urgently. However, developing countries suffer much more existentially from the impacts of extreme weather events,” Vera Künzel, senior adviser for climate change adaptation and human rights at Germanwatch, told Scientific American.
Data for the report was drawn from reinsurer Munich Re, and considered events including storms, floods and heat waves, but not slower accumulating risks like sea level rise or glacial melting. In addition to the 475,000 deaths, the estimate for total economic losses over the period was $2.5 trillion, despite the lack of availability of US data in the dataset. Inclusion of the US would have increased the total economic losses over the period by about $1 trillion.
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