According
to the 12th edition of the Global Climate Risk Index, four out of
the ten most impacted countries globally are African: Mozambique (Rank 1),
Malawi (Rank 3), Ghana and Madagascar (both Rank 8).
"Especially
flooding affected the hosting continent of this year's climate summit",
says Germanwatch's Sönke Kreft, main author of the Index.
Heat
waves claimed most lives last year – more than 4,300 deaths in India and more
than 3,300 deaths in France show that both developing and developed countries
are impacted by extraordinary temperatures.
"Increases
in heavy precipitation, flooding and heatwaves are to be expected in a warming
world," said Kreft.
Ghana's vulnerability
to climate change is in large
part defined by its exposure to the various impacts with droughts, floods and
sea erosion as the main drivers.
The economic, social and infrastructural sectors are
negatively impacted. In the northern parts of Ghana, severe drought
and flooding have reduced agricultural productivity, loss of property and
investments.
In
southern Ghana, sea level rise and other extreme weather conditions have led to
loss of lives, displaced communities and low economic activities, especially fishing.
People
are suffering from lack of protection and insufficient disaster management
especially in poor countries, says Kreft.
"The
distribution of climatic events is not fair. In our 20 year analysis of weather
extremes nine out of the ten most affected countries are developing countries
in the 'low' or 'lower-middle' income category. These are mostly countries with
very low emissions, which are least responsible for climate change," he
observed.
From
1996 to 2015, there were more than 530,000 deaths caused by more than 11,000
extreme weather events, as well as nearly $3.3 trillion – in Purchasing Power
Parities (PPP) – in damages.
The Global Climate Risk Index 2017 is
published at the outset of this year's climate summit (COP22) in Marrakech,
Morocco.
Kreft
has noted “The results of the Global Climate Risk Index remind us of the
importance to support resilience policy, to mitigate the negative effects of
climatic events on people and countries".
The
Germanwatch Global Climate Risk Index 2017 is based on the most recent annual
dataset from the MunichRe NatCatSERVICE and socio-economic data from the IMF's
World Economic Outlook.
The
report features both a short-term and long-term component, analyzing countries
most affected by hydrological, meteorological and climatologically extreme
weather events in the year 2015 and the period of 1996-2015.
By Kofi Adu Domfeh
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