Droughts, storms and floods: Many extreme weather events in Germany are also caused by climate change. The damage they leave behind is considerable, as a study commissioned by the Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection shows.
Man-made climate change has caused average damage of 6.6 billion euros in Germany every year since 2000. In total, there were costs of at least around 145 billion euros. This is the result of a project commissioned by the Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection on the costs of the consequences of climate change in Germany, which has now been presented.
According to the information, this is only part of the damage that has occurred. The actual amount of damage is still higher than the sum mentioned. Because some damage, such as the loss of biodiversity, cannot be converted into money. For others, this is theoretically possible, but there are currently no suitable data bases or methods.
A large part of the damage was caused by extreme weather events, for which the influence of advancing climate change has been clearly proven. The Prognos study puts the damage caused by the drought and hot summers of 2018 and 2019 at 34.9 billion euros and by the extreme floods in July 2021 at 40.5 billion euros. Together with the damage from isolated other hail and storm events of around 5.2 billion euros, the total extent of damage from extreme weather events is more than 80 billion euros.
Federal Climate Protection Minister Robert Habeck drew two conclusions from the results: “First, we have to keep the consequences of the climate crisis at a tolerable level worldwide.” This is only possible with significantly more climate protection. “Secondly, we need a reliable climate adaptation strategy that protects our population, our infrastructure and our economy from heat, flooding and severe weather fluctuations.”
