Extreme weather has cost Europe €50bn and killed 142,000 in 40 years

euronews.com:

Heatwaves, floods, and other extreme weather have killed 142,000 people in Europe over the last 40 years and cost European economies more than 500 billion euros, according to a report released on Thursday.

The European Environment Agency (EEA), which is headquartered in Copenhagen, urged better strategies for dealing with extreme weather at both the individual and pan-European levels. It noted that in only a quarter of cases the damage was insured.

So-called 'climate events', which include heat waves, but also cold spells, droughts, and forest fires, account for 93% of the total number of deaths and for 22% of financial damage.

Floods were the costliest disasters in financial terms, meanwhile, amounting to 44% of the total bill, ahead of storms (34%)

A few very serious events concentrate the bulk of the balance sheet: 3% of the disasters identified are thus responsible for approximately 60% of the financial cost for the period 1980-2020.

A 2003 heatwave alone caused the death of some 80,000 people in the 32 European countries studied, including the 27 members of the European Union as well as Turkey and the United Kingdom.

Globally, the World Meteorological Organization estimates that the number of weather-related disasters has increased over the past 50 years, causing more property damage but fewer deaths.

For Europe, the EEA considers that the data for the past 40 years do not allow concluding with certainty that these phenomena have increased due to climate change due to the very irregular damage depending on the year, but that the risk will increase in the very near future.

"All the disasters that we describe as weather- and climate-related are influenced by climatic conditions. But that does not mean that they are all