Developing countries have been hit most devastatingly by extreme weather events such as heat waves, storms and floods over the past 30 years.
November 12, 2025, 06:29November 12, 2025, 06:30
This is shown by the new climate risk index 2026, which the environmental and development organization Germanwatch published for the UN climate conference in Brazil. In some cases, countries are hit at such short intervals that entire regions can hardly recover from the disasters, as co-author Vera Künzel said. This applies especially to Haiti, the Philippines and India, all of which are in the top ten.
It was only at the weekend – a few days after the devastating typhoon “Kalmaegi” – that a new storm hit the Philippines hard. On average, around 20 tropical cyclones hit the island state every year.
A flooded town after the recent typhoon in the northern Philippines.Image: keystone
830,000 deaths recorded in three decades
In 30 years, the index has recorded more than 9,700 weather extremes with a good 830,000 deaths and, adjusted for inflation, 4.5 trillion US dollars in direct damage. Heat waves and storms pose the greatest threat to human life, as Laura Schäfer, another author, said. Storms also caused by far the greatest damage to property.
At the top of the index over 30 years is Dominica – a small Caribbean island state. It has been hit by hurricanes several times. According to Germanwatch, Hurricane Maria alone in 2017 caused damage there amounting to 1.8 billion US dollars – almost three times the gross domestic product.
Myanmar comes in second place. Here, Cyclone Nargis alone killed almost 140,000 people in 2008 and caused damage worth 5.8 billion US dollars (5 billion euros). This underlines the scientifically confirmed trend that tropical cyclones are becoming stronger and more dangerous in a hotter world due to the climate crisis, it said.
At the climate conference, poorer countries are demanding significantly more help in order to adapt to the climate crisis as best as possible. The need is gigantic. The new UN report on the “adaptation gap” shows that developing countries will need at least 310 billion US dollars (268 billion euros) annually until 2035 – twelve times the current international public financing.
EU countries are also severely affected
But EU states and industrialized countries such as France (12th place), Italy (16th), the USA (18th) and Germany (29th) also end up in the upper range of affected countries.
Switzerland is not mentioned in the report. But the federal government’s recently published climate scenarios show that the Alpine country is also and will continue to be severely affected by climate change.
(sda/dpa/con)