NEW DELHI: India registered at least 80,000 fatalities in the past three decades, causing losses of nearly $180 billion (inflation-adjusted) between 1993 and 2023 due to climate change-induced extreme weather events, a study says.
The study by Climate Risk Index (CRI) 2025, published on Wednesday by the environmental organization Germanwatch, shows that over the last 30 years, Global South countries have been particularly affected by the impacts of extreme weather events.
India ranked 6th and experienced over 10% of total global fatalities and 4.2% of global economic loss due to extreme weather events.
The study states that India is one of the top countries at continuous risk of natural disasters. “For instance, climate change has made devastating early heat in India 30 times more likely,” it says.
“India experienced more than 400 extreme weather events in the past three decades, causing losses of nearly $180 billion (inflation-adjusted) and at least 80,000 fatalities. Moreover, 4.6 crore were affected overall due to extreme weather events,” the report says.
The CRI report underscores India’s diverse climate risks and their varied impacts, including loss of lives and distressed migration. It states that India has faced increasingly frequent extreme weather events, including floods, heat waves, cyclones, and drought. Floods and landslides displaced millions and damaged agriculture, and cyclones devastated coastal areas.
It has pointed 1998 Gujarat and 1999 Odisha cyclones, Cyclones Hudhud and Amphan in 2014 and 2020, the 1993 floods in northern India, the Uttarakhand floods of 2013, and severe floods in 2019. “Moreover, recurring and unusually intense heat waves, all with temperatures around 50°C, claimed many lives in 1998, 2002, 2003, and 2015,” the report says.