According to a report published on Thursday by the European Environment Agency (EEA), the climatic disasters of the past 40 years have caused more than 140,000 deaths in Europe and 510 billion euros in damage.
Floods, forest fires, heat waves or conversely cold spells. Extreme weather events includingEuropean Environment Agency has endeavored to determine the cost, both human and financial, over the past 40 years in an unprecedented work.
First lesson: these are the deadliest heat waves. That of 2003 alone killed 80,000 people in 32 European countries, including the 27 members of the EU as well as Turkey and the United Kingdom.
Conversely, the most costly events are paradoxically among the least deadly. The floods thus caused 225 billion euros in damage over the period, or 44% of the total bill, ahead of the storms: 34%.
Leading European countries, Germany suffered the most, with 42,000 dead and financial losses amounting to 107 billion euros. France follows, with 26,700 dead and 99 billion euros in damage, and Italy with 21,600 dead and 90 billion euros.
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A cost that will increase
All these figures, compiled in a report, also allow two conclusions to be drawn. First of all, the frequency of most of these disasters will increase and the events will become more serious in the years to come. In question, climate change with first and foremost more droughts, not only in the Mediterranean, but in most regions of Europe.
Then, the authors insist on the need to adapt to these changes. If the 2003 heat wave was particularly deadly, this was not the case with those that followed. Because measures had been taken to protect the most fragile. From measures both individual and State, essential to limit future damage as much as possible.
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