Madrid – Worsening
heatwaves are taking a heavier toll on rich as well as poor
countries, according to an annual ranking that measures the
damage done by extreme weather to human life and economies.
The Global Climate Risk Index, published on Wednesday by
environmental think-tank Germanwatch, rated Japan as the most
weather-affected country in 2018, hit by a triple whammy of
extreme summer heat, torrential rainfall and the most powerful
typhoon in a quarter-century.
Germany, another industrialised country, was in third
position as its hottest-ever April-July period led to the deaths
of more than 1 200 people and widespread drought in 2018.
India – in fifth position – suffered one of its longest-ever
heatwaves that year, bringing water shortages, crop failures and
riots, on top of monsoon floods and two strong cyclones,
Germanwatch said in a report.
"Recent science has confirmed the long-established link
between climate change and the frequency and severity of extreme
heat," it added in a statement.
In 2018, the severe summer heatwave in Japan killed 138
people and caused more than 70 000 people to be hospitalised
with heat stroke and exhaustion, the report said.
Across Europe, scientists calculate extreme heat spells are
now up to 100 times more likely than a century ago, it added.
The report noted that the impact of heatwaves on African
nations may be under-represented due to a lack of data.
Powerful storms, meanwhile, left a trail of destruction in
2018, with the Philippines second in the climate risk index due
to large losses inflicted by top-strength Typhoon Mangkhut.
Madagascar was the fourth most weather-hit country as two
cyclones killed about 70 people and forced 70 000 to seek
refuge.
In Kenya and Rwanda – seventh and eighth in the index –
seasonal rains were much heavier than normal, causing floods
that destroyed homes and livestock and fuelled diseases.
Laura Schaefer, a policy adviseor with Germanwatch, told
journalists at the UN climate talks in Madrid the index
results showed that the "signs of climate crisis", on all
continents, could no longer be ignored.
"But climate impacts most existentially hit developing
countries and communities around the world and create a real
climate crisis for millions of people," she said, adding that
the poor had the fewest resources to cope.
Between 1999 and 2018, seven of the 10 places most affected
by extreme weather were lower-income developing nations, with
Puerto Rico, Myanmar and Haiti at the top, Germanwatch said.
In the past 20 years, nearly half a million deaths were
directly linked to more than 12 000 extreme weather events
worldwide, while economic damages exceeded $3.5 trillion, the
report said.
At the UN climate talks on Wednesday, Chile's environment
minister, who is presiding over the conference, and UN climate
chief Patricia Espinosa told journalists Latin American nations
were vulnerable to weather disasters fuelled by climate change,
highlighting the need for them to become more resilient.
Espinosa said her own country, Mexico, suffered every year
from droughts, floods and wildfires.
"It is not about whether this year it will be bad. No, it is
about how bad and where?" she said. "This is the reality of
almost all the countries in the region."
Germanwatch joined developing states and aid agencies in
urging UN negotiators to regularly assess the needs of
vulnerable countries struggling with "loss and damage" linked to
climate change, and provide new funding to repair it.
Wealthy nations have long resisted pressure to stump up such
finance, beyond expanding insurance programmes. But as the cost
of extreme weather increases globally and planet-heating
emissions continue to rise, that pressure is growing.
Renato Redentor Constantino, head of the Philippines-based
Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities, said it was
"plainly unacceptable" that those suffering the most had done
the least to cause the problem, given their historically low
emissions.
"The extreme weather events we have been facing are a result
of emissions that the world failed to eliminate," he said.