Written by Pierre Pailler
Published on 04.02.2022
Place Dargent under water in July 2021 Matic Zorman / Maison Moderne
Climate disasters cost Luxembourg one billion euros between 1980 and 2020 and caused 170 deaths, according to a European report. In Europe, these figures amount to €50bn and potentially 140,000 deaths. The frequency of these disasters is, of course, increasing on the continent.
Between 1980 and 2020, climate-related disasters have cost Luxembourg up to one billion euros, according to a report by the European Environment Agency (EEA) published on Thursday 3 February. And they have caused up to 170 deaths.
In the European Union as a whole, the cost of damage linked to climate-related disasters reached almost €500bn euros over four decades. The report estimates that between 86,000 and 138,000 people have been killed.
While storms and especially floods caused the most material damage (34% and 44% of total losses respectively), heat waves were responsible for the vast majority of deaths (91%), with the 2003 heat wave in particular causing between 50% and 75% of all deaths between 1980 and 2020.
The number of registered climatic disasters in Europe has in any case increased from one decade to the next, rising from 392 events between 1981 and 1990 to 1,220 between 2011 and 2020.
But this increase is not reflected proportionally in the economic cost: over the period 1981-1990, the costs were €10bn, compared with €14.7bn over the decade 2011-2020. According to other estimates, a peak of €13.7bn occurred in the decade 2001-2010, before falling back in the period 2011-2020.
This is explained by the concentration of damage on a few specific events: according to the report, 3% of weather-related disasters in Europe caused 60% of economic losses over the four decades, with large differences between years. The floods of July 2021 in Luxembourg are a perfect illustration.
When it comes to covering costs, only between a quarter and a third of economic losses are insured, the authors of the report note. There are major differences depending on the type of disaster: while events such as storms are the best insured (between 37 and 54% of insured economic costs), this is less the case for floods (between 15 and 24%) and even less for heat waves or droughts (between 7 and 16%).
In Luxembourg, over 40 years, insurance companies have paid out between €218 and 590m (depending on the source). This figure does not take into account the spectacular floods of 14 and 15 July 2021, the natural disaster that cost Luxembourg insurers the most, with more than €100m in damage. The Grand Duchy is in any case among the countries with the highest level of insurance against climatic disasters (between 37% and 56%).
In relative figures, the EEA report notes that all climate-related disasters over the four decades will have cost Luxembourg between €1,000 and 1,500 per inhabitant and over €200,000 per square kilometre. According to some estimates, these costs per capita and per area are among the highest in Europe, similar to those of other countries such as Denmark, Malta or Switzerland. But the average annual loss of GDP due to these disasters is among the lowest (less than 0.03%).
The authors of the report noted that the economic and human costs of future climate disasters in Europe can be greatly reduced if the temperature rise is limited to 1.5°C by 2100. Compared to a rise of 3°C, 60,000 deaths per year from heat waves could be avoided, as well as a cost of €20bn per year from droughts, €24 billion per year from river flooding and €100bn per year from coastal flooding.
This story was first published in French on Paperjam. It has been translated and edited for Delano.