From drought that killed a quarter of a million in the Horn of Africa and heatwaves in Europe that cost some 90,000 lives to what may be the deadliest floods in Spain’s modern history – new analyses draw a direct link between ever more frequent extreme weather and climate change.
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00:00Dramatic flooding in Spain is a reminder that Europe is not immune to extreme weather events.
00:08According to a report by Imperial College London, three of the deadliest such events
00:13in the last 20 years have hit the continent.
00:16The document links climate change with the intensification of these events and the potential
00:22risk of more casualties.
00:29Well, we can't say that extreme weather events are caused purely by climate change.
00:40We know that the severity of them is massively enhanced by climate change.
00:45The heatwaves of 2022 and 2023 claimed almost 90,000 victims in Europe, according to the
00:52report.
00:53However, researchers are also cautious about the figures, pointing out that it is more
00:58difficult to measure the mortality caused by a heatwave than in the case of floods,
01:04but that solutions do exist to prevent such disasters.
01:10We should be able to prepare for these events.
01:12So if you've got heatwaves, we should be able to have early heat warnings to tell people
01:17not to go out, to try and stay in cool places, to drink more water.
01:22When there's flooding coming, we know that we can issue flood warnings, and if people
01:26follow those flood warnings, and they may have to evacuate the areas that are likely
01:30to be affected, it can take them out of harm's way and it can massively reduce the mortality
01:36from these events.
01:38This report was published a few days before the opening of COP29, the International Climate
01:45Conference.
01:46The UN has also pointed out that on this current course, the increase in temperature is likely
01:51to exceed three degrees before the end of the century.