Climate change impacts and vulnerability in Europe 2016

Climate change impacts on society
5.1 Impacts of climate-related extremes
Key messages
• The number of reported climate-related extremes and the economic losses caused by them have increased in recent
decades, but this increase has been driven primarily by better reporting and by socio-economic factors.
• Attribution of the observed changes in the number of disaster events and the associated losses to specific causes is
hampered by large inter-annual variability, changes in reporting, and the implementation of measures to reduce impacts.
• Future climate change will affect the frequency and intensity of climate-related extremes and the associated losses
differently across Europe.
• Evidence-based disaster risk reduction and other public policy choices would be facilitated by better collection of data
concerning the economic, social and environmental impacts of climate extremes.
5.1.1 Overview
The IPCC AR5 concludes that, globally and in Europe,
climate change has led to detectable changes over
the past decades in some extreme weather and
climate‐related events (hereafter climate extremes or
extremes), including extreme temperatures and, in many
regions, intense precipitation (Bindoff et al., 2013). The
increasing exposure of people and assets to climate
extremes is driving the observed increase in economic
losses as a result of disaster events ('disaster losses')
in Europe. Observed changes in climate extremes and
possibly the deteriorated status of natural ecosystems
may also have played a role (IPCC, 2012).
The terms 'disaster damages', 'disaster losses' and 'costs
of disasters' are not always clearly distinguished. In this
report, the term 'damage' is used to refer to physical
damage (e.g. destroyed infrastructure), whereas the
term 'loss' is used to refer to economic losses. Economic
losses can be further categorised into direct losses
(which largely correspond with the costs of physical
damage) and indirect losses (such as the economic
impacts of business interruption) (OECD, 2014; IRDR,
2015; JRC, 2015). The disaster loss data included in the
global databases underpinning this section focus on
direct economic losses as well as human impacts.
Despite progress in the statistical attribution of specific
climate extremes to human-induced global climate
change, it is currently not possible to attribute observed
changes in economic losses to global climate change.
The stochastic nature of disaster risk, with uncertain tail
distributions and only partial observations of disaster
impacts, make it difficult to estimate the extent to which
observed climate change has already contributed to the
growing trend in disaster losses. However, significant
progress has been made in the statistical attribution
of selected extreme climate events to anthropogenic
climate change. This includes events with large economic
and health impacts, such as the 2003 summer heat
wave in large parts of Europe, which have been found to
become much more likely as a result of anthropogenic
climate change (see Sections 3.1 and 3.2.3 for details).
Policy context
A better understanding of the risk of natural hazards
and the ensuing economic losses is important to
prevent excessive macro-economic imbalances and
to coordinate responses to shocks and crises within
the European Economic and Monetary Union. It is also
important for recovery after a disaster, and within the
context of the internal market regulation on state aid
conferred on business enterprises.
State aid given on a selective basis that distorts (or
threatens to distort) free-market competition is
incompatible with the EU internal (single) market,
except for cases in which the aid is to make good the
damage caused by natural disasters. Exposure to
natural hazards exemplifies natural handicaps that
hold up economic, social and territorial cohesion in the
EU. As an expression of the European solidarity that is
pinned down in the Treaty on the Functioning of the
European Union, the EU Solidarity Fund (EU, 2002, 2014)
was set up as a way to respond with financial assistance
in the event of a major, or regionally important, natural
disaster in a Member State or in a country negotiating
membership.
Reliable assessment of past and future losses caused
by climate extremes is essential for well-informed
disaster policies and climate adaptation. The United
190 Climate change, impacts and vulnerability in Europe 2016 | An indicator-based report