Economic losses from climate-related extremes in Europe

Assessment versions

Published (reviewed and quality assured)

• 20 Dec 2020, 02:59 PM
  - Economic losses from climate-related extremes in Europe

Rationale

Justification for indicator selection

The rationale for the indicator production has not been identified 

Scientific references

• Climate-ADAPT, ‘EU adaptation strategy’, Climate-ADAPT  accessed 24 September 2020.
• EC, undated, ‘EU adaptation strategy’, European Commission accessed 24 September 2020a
• EC, 2018b, ‘EU is ready for climate impacts: Commission evaluates its strategy’,  European Commission accessed 10 March 2020.
• EC, 2020, Adaptation to climate change — Blueprint for a new, more ambitious EU strategy European Commission, Brussels accessed 1 July 2020.
• IPCC, 2013, Climate change 2013: The physical science basis The physical science basis - Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Cambridge University Press, New York, NY.
• IPCC, 2014, Climate change 2014: Impacts, adaptation and vulnerability - Part B: Regional aspects. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
• UN, 2015, Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030, United Nations accessed 24 September 2020.

Indicator definition

This indicator considers the number of fatalities, and the overall and insured economic losses from weather and climate-related events in EEA member countries since 1980. Hazards considered are those classified as meteorological hazards, hydrological hazards and climatological hazards as used by Munich Re and based on the classification by the International Council for Science (ICSU).

Integrated Research on Disaster Risk. (2014). Peril Classification and Hazard Glossary (IRDR DATA Publication No. 1). Beijing: Integrated Research on Disaster Risk.

Units

The units used in this indicator are the number of events, and damages in euros (2019 euro value).

Policy context and targets

Context description

In April 2013, the European Commission presented the EU Strategy on adaptation to climate change (COM/2013/0216). One of the objectives is better informed decision-making, by further developing Climate-ADAPT as the 'first-stop shop' for adaptation information in Europe. In 2018, the European Commission published an evaluation of the EU Adaptation Strategy (COM(2018) 738) and a revised version is foreseen to be published in 2021.

Article 6 of Decision No. 1313/2013/EU of the European Parliament and the Council on a Union Civil Protection Mechanism obliges the EU Member States to develop risk assessments at national or appropriate sub-national levels and to make a summary of the relevant elements thereof. It is summarised in an Overview of natural and man-made disaster risks the European Union may face (SWD/2020/0330).

The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (UN, Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030), including ‘Understanding disaster risk’, requires that the signatory countries systematically evaluate, record, share and publicly account for disaster losses and understand the economic impacts at national and sub-national levels.

Targets

No targets has been identified for this indicator

Related policy documents

• Climate-ADAPT: Adaptation in EU policy sectors
  Overview of EU sector policies in which mainstreaming of adaptation to climate change is ongoing or explored
• Climate-ADAPT: Country profiles
  Overview of activities of EEA member countries in preparing, developing and implementing adaptation strategies
• Decision No 1313/2013/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council on a Union Civil Protection Mechanism
  The EU Civil Protection Mechanism was set up to enable coordinated assistance from the participating states to victims of natural and man-made disasters in Europe and elsewhere. The European Commission supports and complements the prevention and preparedness efforts of participating states, focusing on areas where a joint European approach is more effective than separate national actions. These include improving the quality of and accessibility to disaster information, encouraging research to promote disaster resilience, and reinforcing early warning tools.
• DG CLIMA: Adaptation to climate change
  Adaptation means anticipating the adverse effects of climate change and taking appropriate action to prevent or minimise the damage they can cause, or taking advantage of opportunities that may arise. It has been shown that well planned, early adaptation action saves money and lives in the future. This web portal provides information on all adaptation activities of the European Commission.
• EU Adaptation Strategy Package
  In April 2013, the European Commission adopted an EU strategy on adaptation to climate change, which has been welcomed by the EU Member States. The strategy aims to make Europe more climate-resilient. By taking a coherent approach and providing for improved coordination, it enhances the preparedness and capacity of all governance levels to respond to the impacts of climate change.

Methodology

Methodology for indicator calculation

This assessment is based on the Munich Re NatCatSERVICE dataset and the Eurostat collection of economic indicators, whereas data from earlier years not covered by Eurostat have been completed using data from the Annual Macro-Economic Database of the European Commission (AMECO), the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) World Economic Outlook (WEO), the Total Economy Database (TED) and the World Bank database.

Data are received from the Munich Re NatCatSERVICE under institutional agreement and have been adjusted to account for inflation. They are presented in 2019 euro values.

Definition of a loss event: the event can occur in several countries; events are counted by country and by year and type of natural hazard.

The European Commission is working with Member States, the ISDR and other international organisations to improve data on disaster losses. The JRC has prepared guidance for recording and sharing disaster damage and loss data, status and best practices for disaster loss data recording in EU Member States and recommendations for a European approach for recording disaster losses. Once comparable national databases on disaster losses are available for all EU Member States and EEA member countries and these data are reported, this EEA indicator can possibly be based on such data. 

The analysis reported here includes all EEA member countries and the United Kingdom and Turkey, including that part of the country that is classified by NatCatSERVICE as not belonging to Europe. This is why the results reported here may be slightly different to data reported by Munich Re itself.

Methodology for gap filling

Data gap filling is not necessary

Methodology references

No methodology references available.

Data specifications

EEA data references

• No datasets have been specified here.

External data references

• NatCatSERVICE (Dataset URL is not available)

Data sources in latest figures

Uncertainties

Methodology uncertainty

Not applicable

Data sets uncertainty

Information for Europe can in theory be extracted from different global disaster databases, including the EMDAT database maintained by CRED that places a particular focus on human fatalities, and displaced and affected people, and the NatCatSERVICE database maintained by Munich Re that provides data on insured and overall losses (used in this indicator). The 'disaster thresholds' for an event to be included in these global databases are as follows:

• EMDAT: 10 or more people killed and/or 100 or more people affected and/or declaration of a state of emergency and/or call for international assistance;
• NatCatSERVICE: Small-scale property damage and/or one fatality.

Over recent years, these global databases have been harmonised, although some differences remain. During recent decades, these databases have improved their reporting, which means that caution is needed in formulating conclusions about trends. In addition, both databases are less suitable for analysing the impacts of smaller events or for analysis at the sub-national level.

Further information on uncertainties is provided in the EEA report on Climate change, impacts and vulnerability in Europe 2016 (http://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/climate-impacts-and-vulnerability-2016/).

Rationale uncertainty

Not applicable.