Weather extremes in industrialized countries
Storm damage cost more and more prosperity
Since 1980, the costs of storm damage in major industrialized nations have multiplied. The increase is particularly noticeable in the USA and Germany, reports the reinsurer Munich Re. The trend in China is positive.
Weather disasters are costing the largest economies more and more money and prosperity. This is shown by an analysis by the reinsurer Munich Re. In eight of the ten industrialized countries, the damage caused by weather extremes, measured in terms of gross national income, is significantly higher today than in the 1980s, Munich Re reports. The reason for the publication is the World Climate Conference in Brazil.
With an increase of around five times, Germany is one of the hardest hit nations, write the insurer’s geoscientists. The company puts the total damage caused by storms and floods in Germany from 1980 to 2024 at 210 billion dollars (currently around 182 billion euros), on a par with India in third place.
At the top of the ranking of the ten largest economies in the world is the USA with 2.7 trillion dollars in damage, followed by China with 680 billion dollars.
China improved Flood protection
Despite the high amount in recent decades, the damage in China – measured in terms of the development of national gross income – has decreased thanks to improved flood protection, as the analysis states.
In the USA and Germany, on the other hand, things rose steeply from decade to decade. In Germany, the Ahr Valley flood of 2021, which, according to Munich Re, caused $42 billion in damage, made a significant contribution to this.
There were also sharp increases in extreme weather damage in Canada, Italy and France, and somewhat less pronounced in India, Japan and Brazil. Apart from China, extreme weather damage, as measured by gross national income, has only fallen in Great Britain.
Analysis: Storms have become more extreme
Munich Re sees a clear connection with climate change: storms are not only occurring more frequently than in previous decades, but they have also become more extreme. These would attack the economic substance of even the largest industrialized countries, warn chief geoscientist Tobias Grimm and his colleagues.
The damage would increasingly consume a noticeable proportion of the respective country’s economic output. “Rich country, poor country – climate change does not differentiate. Weather disasters destroy lives, livelihoods and economic values all over the world,” says Grimm.
The scientist calls for much more money to be invested in prevention than having to invest billions in reconstruction after disasters. “This applies to richer as well as financially weaker countries.”
