Investigators with the VTT Technical Research Center of Finland argue in a new report that Europe is losing around €15 billion ($18,79 billion) annually on account of extreme weather phenomena. A majority of such instances are caused by global warming and associated climate change.
The new report is available in full for the general public,
at this link. The document mostly refers to the amount of money that the countries in the European Union are losing through the transport system. The team that compiled the report said that €15 billion is a conservative figure.
According to the report, road accidents are the primary route through which the money drains. In addition to material damages (including vehicles and infrastructure), these crashes cause significant psychological suffering among those involved. The latter in turn raise healthcare system costs.
An important section of the paper was dedicated to analyzing the impact of global warming and climate change on extreme weather phenomena. Already, instances of severe weather that are out of the usual have appeared around the world,
e! Science News reports.
This, as always, is consistent with scientific conditions, and in stark contrast with global warming detractors' views on things. The report outlines that the influence of higher temperatures will continue to shift the interaction patterns that until now existed between the soils, atmosphere and oceans.
According to analysts, this study is the first ever to compile extensive calculations of the costs associated with an impaired European transportation system, for all of the 27 Member States in the EU.
“Europe will each year face extreme weather costs of more than 15 billion euros, based on our calculations which rely on some strong assumptions. However, we believe that this is the magnitude that should be kept in mind when addressing climate change issues,” the reports states.
“The good news is that it seems that the global warming will reduce these costs, unless the weather extremes become even more violent than what they are at present. Warming climate will reduce many costs in maintenance and also improve the safety of the transport system,” it goes on to say.
“What remains very uncertain are the counter-effects of warming. This analysis brought very little light on that and we feel that the investigation should seriously go to this direction. Warming might include consequences not yet clearly seen,” the authors conclude.
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