<div style="text-align: justify; "><b style="font-size: 1rem;">Extreme weather conditions in Europe have killed almost 195,000 people and caused economic losses of more than 560 billion euros since 1980, the European Environment Agency said Wednesday.</b><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"Nearly 195,000 fatalities have been caused by floods, storms, heat- and coldwaves, forest fires and landslides" between 1980 and 2021, the EAA said in its report.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Of the 560 billion euros ($605 billion) in losses, only 170 billion, or 30 percent, were insured, the EEA said, as it launched a new online portal collating recent data on the impact of extreme weather.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"To prevent further losses, we need to urgently move from responding to extreme weather events...to proactively preparing for them," EEA expert Aleksandra Kazmierczak told AFP.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">According to the latest data, heatwaves accounted for 81 percent of deaths and 15 percent of financial losses.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Europe needs to take measures to protect its ageing population, with the elderly particularly sensitive to extreme heat, the EEA said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"Most national adaptation policies and health strategies recognise the impacts of heat on cardiovascular and respiratory systems. But less than half cover direct impacts of heat like dehydration or heat stroke," it said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The summer of 2022 saw more deaths than usual in Europe following repeated heatwaves, but the 2022 deaths were not included in the data published on Wednesday.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">There were 53,000 more deaths in July 2022 than the monthly average in 2016-2019, up by 16 percent, though not all of those deaths were directly attributed to the heat, the EEA said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Spain registered more than 4,600 deaths linked to the extreme heat in June, July and August.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Climate modelling has predicted longer, more intense and more frequent heatwaves.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In February 2022, the EAA said extreme weather killed 142,000 people and caused 510 billion euros in losses for the period 1980-2020.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The increase in the figures released on Wednesday was partly due to the fact that in 2021, flooding in Germany and Belgium led to economic losses of almost 50 billion euros.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In terms of deaths, a change in methodology in France and Germany was responsible for the large variation, the EEA said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">- 'Devastating consequences' -</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Climate change caused by humans increased the risk of drought five- or six-fold in 2022, a year when forest fires ravaged twice as much territory as in recent years, the EEA said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Droughts could end up being very costly.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Economic losses could rise from nine billion euros per year currently to 25 billion euros at the end of the century if the planet warms by 1.5C degrees.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">That could climb to 31 billion euros if it warms by 2C and 45 billion euros if it warms by 3C, according to scientific scenarios.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The consequences for agriculture could be "devastating", the EEA warned.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"Farmers can limit adverse impacts of rising temperature and droughts by adapting crop varieties, changing sowing dates and with changed irrigation patterns," the report said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Without changes, yields and farm incomes are projected to decline in the future, it said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">While human losses from flooding are much lower, accounting for just two percent of the total, they are the most costly, accounting for 56 percent of economic losses. AFP</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">bnbd24/kh</div>