Germany is the country in Europe most affected by extreme weather, according to the Global Climate Risk Index presented at COP25 in Madrid.

The global climate risk index, presented by Germanwatch, a non-governmental organization, at the 2019 UN Climate Summit, analyzed data from 1999 to 2018 to estimate which countries have been impacted the most by weather-related events.

Though developing countries and low-income and lower-middle-income countries have been hit the hardest and are more vulnerable to the damage caused by extreme weather and have longer recovery times, high-income countries are also impacted – with Germany among the top three countries that suffered the most losses, behind only Japan and the Philippines.

It is the first time Germany has ranked so high in the list.

In 2018, Germany experienced its hottest year since records began, with temperatures pushing 2.9 degrees Celsius above the national average. The heatwave led to an overall death toll of 1,234 people. 

Germany had only 61 percent of the usual amount of rainfall during the same summer – a scarcity that led to a drought in October and caused a massive decline in harvests, costing the economy roughly $3.3 billion.

Summer 2018 was particularly disastrous for Japan. In July, torrential rainfall resulted in floods and mudslides killing more than 200 people and causing damaged to millions of houses. In August, a severe heatwave led to 138 fatalities and more than 70,000 people were hospitalized with heat stroke and heat exhaustion. In September, Typhoon Jebi, the most intense tropical cyclone to hit the country for more than 25 years, caused damage worth more than $12 billion.

Another typhoon, the strongest recorded worldwide in 2018, hit the Philippines and affected more than 250,000 people.

Further down this list, the climate risk index register records damages and losses for Madagascar, India, Sri Lanka, Kenya, Rwanda, Canada and Fiji.

The index differentiates between countries that have been affected the most by exceptional catastrophes and those that are continuously affected by extreme events, a category over-represented by developing countries.

In the period between 1999 and 2018, Puerto Rico, Myanmar and Haiti have been the most impacted countries. Other countries including the Philippines and Pakistan are regularly affected by extreme weather conditions such as cyclones.

The compilers of The Global Climate Risk Index warned negotiators at COP25 to take action to prevent extreme weather events becoming more frequent and more severe in the future.