By 2100, extreme weather could kill 152,000 Europeans annually
LONDON:Europe’s death toll from weather disasters could rise 50-fold by the end of this century, with extreme heat alone killing more than 150,000 people a year by 2100 if nothing is done to curb the effects of climate change, scientists said on Friday.
In a study in The Lancet Planetary Health journal, the scientists said their findings showed climate change placing a rapidly increasing burden on society, with two in three people in Europe likely to be affected if greenhouse gas emissions and extreme weather events are not controlled.
The predictions, based on an assumption of no reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and no improvement in policies to reduce the impact of climate, show European weather-related deaths rising to 152,000 a year between 2071 and 2100.
“Climate change is one of the biggest global threats to human health of the 21st century, and its peril to society will be increasingly connected to weatherdriven hazards,” said Giovanni Forzieri of the European Commission Joint Research Centre in Italy, who co-led the study.
He said that “unless global warming is curbed, some 350 million Europeans could be exposed to harmful climate extremes by the end of the century.
The study analysed the effects of the seven most harmful weather-related disaster – heat waves, cold waves, wildfires, droughts, river and coastal floods and windstorms – in the 28 countries of the European Union, plus Switzerland, Norway and Iceland.
Their findings suggested heat waves would be the most lethal weather-related disaster and could cause 99% of all future weather-related deaths in Europe.