Extreme weather deaths in Europe 'could increase 50-fold by next century’

Deaths from weather disasters could increase 50-fold in Europe by the start of the next century if no action is taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or protect citizens, researchers have warned.

Wildfires in Portugal killed 64 people in June; the recent study
 explores how often and where similar weather-related
disasters are likely to occur in the coming years. 

A new study estimates a toll of 152,000 deaths a year between 2071 and 2100 as a direct result of hazards relating to extreme weather, with those living in southern Europe likely to be the hardest hit.

“Governments and policies should be focused more on designing suitable adaptation measures,” said Giovanni Forzieri, a co-author of the study from the European Commission Joint Research Centre in Italy. “If no adaptation measures [are] taken, these estimates are really alarming.”

Writing in the journal Lancet Planetary Health, Forzieri and colleagues describe how they used state-of-the art predictions to explore how often and where seven types of weather disasters – including heatwaves, wildfires and floods – are likely to occur across Europe in the coming years if no action on global warming is taken.

The analysis also used large datasets from disasters in recent years to calculate a fixed value of human vulnerability for different weather events, and incorporated projections on how populations were likely to change.

Read The Guardian story bye Nicola Davis - “Extreme weather deaths in Europe 'could increase 50-fold by next century’.”