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The EU countries hit hardest financially by climate change
It’s no secret that climate change and increasingly extreme weather patterns have hit nations in the pocket. But which countries have suffered the gravest financial blows?
In the last decade, climate-change related economic losses are said to have reached €145 billion. If you look at the last 40 or so years, this figure leaps up to an eyewatering €500 billion.
And sadly, things only going to get worse. The European Environmental Agency (EEA) has reported that EU countries are likely to see an annual increase of 2% in terms of economic losses due to climate related activities such as wildfires.
Eurostat defines “climate-change related losses” as being those caused by meteorological events such as storms, hydrological events such as floods or mass movements, and climatological events such as heatwaves, cold waves, droughts, or forest fires.
But which nations have felt the financial impact most?
According to Euronews, France, Italy and Germany have born the brunt of economic losses as a result of global warming. In 2020, France took a hit of €4.2 billion, Italy lost out on €2.5 billion, and Germany have seen losses of €1.7 billion.
Prior to this, between 1980 and 2020, these same three countries accounted for a whopping 61% of the total losses of the EU within this period.
In 2020, France, Italy and Germany were followed by Greece (€969 million loss), Belgium (€377 million loss), Romania (€370 million loss), Turkey (€356 million loss), and Poland (€327 million loss).
Bulgaria, Slovenia and Luxembourg are the EU nations least impacted by climate change-related financial losses.
But it was Greece that has experienced the greatest economic loss per inhabitant at €91 per person in 2020, compared with the hardest hit countries overall, which suffered losses per inhabitant as follows: France, €62 per person, Italy, €41 per person and Germany, €21 per person.
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