Climate Report Details Countries Most Prone to Natural Disasters

Details of a new study on worldwide disasters are shedding a little light on which countries have suffered the worst at the hands of weather and climate change. Is your home on the list? Here is what the data is telling us.

Study Pinpoints Most Vulnerable Countries for Natural Disasters

A new report by the journal Germanwatch has revealed which nations have been impacted the most significantly by Mother Nature over the last 30 years. The Climate Risk Index 2025 report looked at the last three decades ending 2022 to determine what parts of the world have seen the most fatalities, economic losses, and overall number of people impacted by climate disasters.

The island of Dominica in the Caribbean was ranked as the worst country for the Climate Risk Index. China came in at number two on the list, with Honduras, Myanmar, and Italy rounding out the top five.

The data demonstrates that Dominica is affected by a destructive storm every few years. Nobody on the island will soon forget the damage caused by Hurricane Maria. This major tropical weather event was responsible for $1.8 billion (2017 USD) in economic losses. To put that number into perspective, the figure was almost three times the gross domestic product of Dominica. The island also sustained meaningful damage by Hurricane Dorian in 2019, Hurricane Erika in 2015, Hurricane Omar in 2008, and Hurricane Debby in 2000.

The massive country of China has also been under the gun in recent years for far-reaching weather events. China experienced deadly flooding in both 1998 and 2016. The nation also sustained major damage by Typhoon Fred in 1994, as well as Saomai in 2006.

In addition to the tropical weather events, China has been gripped by a series of heat waves and long-lasting droughts over the last 30 years. These economic losses have been estimated at over $700 billion. More sadly, Chinese officials have reported that at least 42,000 fatalities can be blamed on these events over the last three decades.

Most Common Extreme Weather Events Around the World

Pulling it out to a global scale, most of the deaths caused by weather around the world have come from flash flooding, extreme heat, and storms. Each of the three extreme weather events has been responsible for 200,000 deaths each over the studied time period.

Storms caused the highest amount of economic damage at $137 billion. Wildfire damage came in second place with an estimated $1 billion. Flooding was responsible for $46 million in economic losses around the world, while drought contributed another $35 million to the total.

On the other end of the spectrum, the country with the lowest climate risk was the United Arab Emirates. The UAE was followed by Qatar, Kuwait, Libya, and the Maldives. The reason that these areas escaped the worst of the impacts is simply due to location. The Middle East is not as vulnerable to stormy conditions or drought. While the Maldives often experiences threatening sea-level rise, this risk was not considered in the data points of this particular study.

The important takeaway from the study was that human-induced climate change is a key driver of these natural disasters. Not only has global warming increased the frequency of such events, but the intensity has also ratcheted it up a notch over the last few decades.

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