Between 1993 and 2022, extreme weather events globally claimed more than 765,000 lives and directly caused economic losses of nearly $4.2 trillion (adjusted for inflation). These alarming figures are the result of more than 9,400 extreme weather events. The Climate Risk Index (CRI) for 2025 analyses the consequences of these events and provides a sobering insight into which countries bear the brunt.

Long-term view (1993 – 2022): Who suffers the most?

Based on long-term data spanning three decades, the three most affected countries in the world are Dominica, China and Honduras.

The entire top ten of the long-term ranking looks like this:

1. Dominica: This small island nation took the top spot largely due to its huge relative economic losses. It is regularly hit by hurricanes, with Hurricane Maria alone in 2017 causing $1.8 billion in damage, an incredible $270 trillion of the country's GDP.
2. China: The country faces exceptionally high absolute losses due to recurring floods on the Yangtze River and severe typhoons. In 30 years, it has experienced more than 600 extreme events with losses of US$706 billion and at least 42,000 deaths.
3. Honduras: It is one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere and is plagued by devastating hurricanes. Hurricane Mitch (1998) destroyed 70 million tons of crops and infrastructure and killed more than 14,000 people.
4. Myanmar: The high ranking is a result of Cyclone Nargis in 2008, which killed nearly 140,000 people.
5. Italy: It has experienced a huge number of deaths due to extreme heat waves (especially in 2003 and 2022). Total economic losses over 30 years have reached almost $60 billion with over 38,000 deaths.
6. India: It faces a combination of floods, typhoons and extreme heat reaching up to 50°C.
7. Greece: It made it into the top ten due to the high number of casualties caused by deadly heat waves and widespread forest fires.
8. Spain: Like Italy and Greece, Spain has suffered enormous loss of life (almost 27,000 deaths over three decades) mainly due to scorching heat waves.
9. Vanuatu: The Pacific island nation faces devastating cyclones. Cyclone Pam in 2015 destroyed most of the country's food crops and affected more than two-thirds of the population.
10. Philippines: Its geographical location makes the country a target for regular typhoons, the most powerful of which was Typhoon Haiyan (2013), which killed more than 7,000 people and destroyed 1.1 million homes.

Notable on this long-standing list is the strong presence of three high-income European countries (Italy, Greece, Spain). The main reason for their presence is deadly heat waves, which account for up to 30% of all deaths caused by extreme weather over the past 30 years.

The two faces of climate risk and the "new normal"„

The analysis shows that we can divide the most affected countries into two categories:

• Countries facing exceptionally extreme events: These include Dominica, Honduras, Myanmar, and Vanuatu, places where one or a few extremely rare and powerful events have caused devastating nationwide damage.
• Countries with constant threat (recurring extremes): China, India, Pakistan and the Philippines are regularly affected by extreme weather.

Climate change is not only increasing risks in both categories, but scientific evidence clearly shows that it is gradually turning once rare and unusual events into constant threats. In this way, extreme weather is becoming global. „"the new normal"“.

Warning year 2022: No one is immune to climate

A look at the year 2022 itself paints a slightly different, but equally ominous, picture. The top three were: Pakistan, Belize and Italy.

Pakistan experienced its worst monsoon floods on record, inundating 10 million hectares of land, affecting more than 33 million people and causing almost $15 billion in damage. In contrast, Europe was hit by an extreme heat wave. As a result, up to 7 of the 10 most affected countries in 2022 were high-income countries (In addition to Italy, Greece and Spain, this included Puerto Rico, the US, Portugal and Bulgaria.) Although richer countries have significantly better financial capacity to cope with disasters, the index clearly shows that they too urgently need to step up their efforts to mitigate risks and build resilience.

The Climate Risk Index 2025 sends a clear message: inaction to reduce emissions will lead to severe consequences everywhere in the world. While developing countries and poorer segments of the population bear the consequences disproportionately, the crisis does not discriminate. If we want to avoid further irreversible damage, it is essential to accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels and substantially increase financial assistance for adaptation for the most vulnerable. JRi&CO2AI