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The result of the negotiations taking place these weeks in Madrid will be reflected in the future of millions of people. Experts warn that keeping global warming below 1.5º means reducing the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, such as heat waves, storms, droughts and floods. Natural disasters that have especially severe effects in the poorest and most vulnerable countries, but that are also increasingly affecting the largest economies.

Spain in particular is one of the countries in which the damages caused by extreme weather events have worsened in recent years, according to the Global Climate Risk Index (IRC), presented this Wednesday in Madrid. This annual report, prepared by the NGO Germanwatch , classifies countries according to their vulnerability to extreme weather events.

This year Spain occupies the 38th position in the ranking , which represents an important jump compared to the previous year (47). "That rise is mainly due to the heavy rains, storms and floods that took place in October in the eastern part of the peninsula and in the Balearic Islands ," says David Eckstein , one of the authors of the document.

In a second classification included in the report, which takes into account the accumulated records of the last 10 years, Spain goes from 34 to 29, which confirms a trend towards greater vulnerability. In this sense, the European Environment Agency (EEA) already advanced in 2017 that heat waves, floods, droughts and storms would be increasingly frequent and intense throughout the continent and especially pointed to southern countries as a "critical point ", being one of the areas that will suffer with more intensity the consequences of climate change.

"The index shows that climate change has a disastrous impact on poor countries such as Haiti , the Philippines or Pakistan , which are repeatedly affected by extreme weather events and do not have time to fully recover," Eckstein explains, "but it also causes damage every time. more serious in industrialized countries. "

In 2018 Japan was one of the most affected countries, in human and material losses: according to the report almost 1,300 people died from causes related to extreme weather events, with material damages worth 35.8 billion dollars. Germany , which suffered severe heat waves, is also among the ten most affected countries.

Heat waves were precisely one of the main sources of damage in 2018. This week the secretary general of the World Meteorological Organization said that periods of extreme temperatures are now up to 100 times more likely than a century ago. And Germanwatch experts remember that, due to lack of data, the effects of such events on the African continent may be underrepresented.

Financing mechanisms

"The data underscores the importance of having reliable financial support mechanisms for poor countries," Eckstein claims, "not only for adaptation to climate change, but also to deal with losses and damage caused by climate." The financial support for the losses caused by the climate occupies, for the first time, a priority place on the agenda at the summit in Madrid.

The most vulnerable countries demand an agreement that allows to sustain in a concrete way - with financing and means - those who are most suffering the effects of global warming. "The poorest people and countries are the most affected by the impacts of climate change because they lack the financial and technical capacity to deal with losses and damages," adds Laura Schaefer , co-author of the report.

Experts from the German NGO remember that seven of the ten countries most affected by climate change in the last two decades are developing states with lower or lower average per capita incomes. Specifically, Puerto Rico , Myanmar and Haiti were the most punished if we look at the aggregate data for the 1999-2018 period. In the last 20 years, almost 500,000 fatalities worldwide have been directly related to more than 12,000 extreme weather events, with economic damages amounting to approximately $ 3.54 billion.

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