- In the last decade, climate-fueled disasters were the No. 1 force behind internal displacement, according to a report from Oxfam, driving 20 million people from their homes a year.
- While extreme weather events aren’t exclusive to poorer or developing countries, they tend to affect them most severely.
- NGO Germanwatch listed the 15 places most severely affected by extreme weather events between 1999 and 2018 in the 15th edition of its global climate risk index. The US commonwealth of Puerto Rico ranked at the top.
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
Climate change is making extreme weather events more likely. As well as claiming countless lives, climate-fueled disasters beat conflict as the No. 1 driver behind internal displacement in the last 10 years, according to a report from Oxfam.
In the last decade, they forced roughly 20 million people from their homes on a yearly basis.
Today, it’s three times likelier that you’ll be internally displaced by a flood, a cyclone, or a wildfire than by conflict, Oxfam’s report suggested.
While climate-related disasters aren’t exclusive to poorer or developing countries, they tend to affect them most severely.
NGO Germanwatch’s 15th edition of its global climate risk index underlined that poorer countries “are the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change”, with 80% of people displaced by extreme climatic events in the last decade based in Asia, home to over a third of the world’s poorest people.
These are the 15 places that were most severely affected by extreme weather events between 1999 and 2018, taking into account the number of deaths caused and the economic impact for each state, according to Germanwatch.
