Climate disasters, such as heat waves or cold, droughts or floods, are phenomena that threaten people's lives and do so to such an extent that according to a new study published in the journal 'The Lancet Planetary Health', Between 2071 and 2100, some 152 Europeans could lose theirs as a result of some natural catastrophe..
Unless the emissions of polluting gases are urgently reduced and the appropriate measures are taken, of the 3 deaths that occurred in recent years, in a few decades we could rise to more than XNUMX.
The researchers analyzed the records of 2300 meteorological disasters that occurred in Europe between 1981 and 2010, in order to determine the vulnerability of the population, and then combined this information with the projections on the evolution of the climate to find out what impact they could have.
Thus, they were able to find out that heat waves will be the most lethal phenomenon, they could cause 99% of deaths. In recent years, these extreme events have caused 2700 deaths, but could be 151.500 between 2071 and 2100. But in addition, the number of deaths due to coastal flooding will also rise considerably, from six deaths / year at the beginning of the century to 233 a end. Fires, river floods, windstorms and droughts will also kill more people, but the increase will be much smaller.
Extreme heat will be the main problem for Europeans, especially those who live in the south of the Old Continent. In these countries, among which is Spain, Italy or Greece, heat waves could cause about 700 annual deaths per million inhabitants.
And if we talk about cold waves, they will be less and less frequent according to the study, which is not surprising, since in recent times winters are softening due to global warming.
You can read the study here.