All official European Union website addresses are in the europa.eu domain.
See all EU institutions and bodies
An official website of the European Union | How do you know?
Environmental information systems
EN
The indicator shows total economic losses from weather- and climate-related extreme events (such as windstorms, flooding, heatwaves, cold spells, droughts or wildfires) per country and per year (since 1980). A moving average for the previous 30 years is added because of the large interannual variability of the losses.
Limitations of methodology
At the European level, there is no harmonised methodology for collecting or reporting on losses from weather- and climate-related extremes. In the absence of public data comparable across Europe, the EEA applies an indicator that uses privately procured data. The dataset comes with strict limitations on the information that can be disclosed. A route to reliably validate the data in the graph, within Ireland, could not be found and it is not clear if the data capture Ireland’s economic structure.
Notwithstanding the above, the graph shows a considerable increase in climate-related economic losses over the last 10 years. The European Central Bank estimates that the Irish financial system’s exposure to flood risk in the commercial sector is among the highest in the euro area.
Recent research examined the economic impacts of climate change in Ireland across flooding, labour, agriculture and health. It found that, without additional mitigation measures, the cost of the sea level rising by 0.56 m would be approximately EUR 2 billion in 2050 and could grow to EUR 3 billion by 2100. It also found that the projected annual economic damage from river flooding for 2070 under moderate warming is about EUR 95 million.
Recent analysis indicates that gross domestic product (GDP) losses in Ireland’s economy are highest without adaptation (2.6% by 2030), compared with 1.3% with mitigation and 0.6% with optimal adaptation. It highlighted the need for more research on impacts and adaptation strategies and emphasised the importance of considering secondary impacts.
Further development of flood protection is critical, together with the management of the insurance market, to protect people, property and the financial system in the face of increasing flood risks. The EPA is currently carrying out a national climate change risk assessment, which will inform action to address climate-related financial losses.
References and footnotes
- ↵European Central Bank, ‘Analytic indicators of physical risk’, European Central Bank website, accessed 20 June 2025, https://www.ecb.europa.eu/stats/all-key-statistics/horizontal-indicators/sustainability-indicators/data/html/ecb.climate_indicators_physical_risks.en.html.
- a bDe Bruin, K., Kweku Kyei, C. and Henry, L., Climate change impacts and associated economic costs in Ireland, ESRI Working Papers, No 788, Dublin, 2024, https://www.esri.ie/system/files/publications/WP788.pdf.
- ↵De Bruin, K., Henry, L., Kweku Kyei, C., Yakut, A. M., Interactions between climate change mitigation, damages, and adaptation: An intertemporal computable general equilibrium analysis for Ireland, ESRI Working Papers, No 790, Dublin, 2024, https://www.esri.ie/system/files/publications/WP790.pdf.
- ↵EPA, ‘Chapter 4 – Climate change’, in: Ireland’s State of the Environment Report 2024, Wexford, 2024, pp. 81–112, https://www.epa.ie/our-services/monitoring--assessment/assessment/state-of-environment-report-/.