More than 16,000 Europeans died as a result of climate change in 2022, the year in which Europe warmed 2.3 degrees more than the pre-industrial period (1850-1900), the UN and the Copernicus program of the European Union announced on Monday.
According to the “State of the Climate” in Europe 2022 report, the European continent has warmed twice the world average since the 1980s, with a strong impact on the region’s socioeconomic fabric and ecosystems.
Meteorological, hydrological and climatic hazards directly affected 156,000 people last year and caused 16,365 deaths, according to the Emergency Situations Database (EM-DAT).
The more than 16,000 deaths were mainly due to heat waves.
However, about 67% of the events were floods and storms, which accounted for the majority of the total economic damage of almost two billion dollars (1.83 billion euros at current exchange rates).
“The record heat load experienced by Europeans in 2022 was one of the main drivers of excess weather-related deaths in Europe. Unfortunately, this cannot be considered an isolated case or a surprise”, considered the director of the Copernicus Monitoring Service. Climate Change (C3S), Carlo Buontempo.
“Our perception of the current climate system and its evolution tells us that these types of events are part of a pattern that will make hot spots more frequent and intense throughout the region,” he added.
The now published report coincides with the sixth edition of the conference on climate adaptation in Europe, ECCA 2023, which takes place between today and Wednesday, in Dublin, Ireland.
Since 1980, disasters caused by climate change have claimed the lives of 195,000 people, according to the European Environment Agency (EEA).
“In 2022, many countries in western and southwestern Europe recorded their hottest year on record. The summer was the hottest on record,” said World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Secretary-General Petteri Taalas.
Quoted in a statement, Taalas said that the high temperatures aggravated the conditions of severe and widespread drought, stimulated violent forest fires – which resulted in the second largest burnt area ever recorded – and caused thousands of deaths due to excess heat.
Several countries, including Portugal, Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Spain, and Switzerland and the United Kingdom, had their hottest year on record.
The average annual temperature last year was between the second and fourth highest on record, anomaly about 0.79 degrees above the 1991-2020 normal.
Precipitation was below average over much of the region in 2022, and rates of ocean surface warming, particularly in the eastern Mediterranean, Baltic and Black seas, and southern Arctic, were three times the rate. world average.
Source: TSF
