By Martin Banks - 4th March 2009
Storms, floods and heatwaves are major threats to Europe
Margareta Wahlstrom
A Brussels conference was told that Europe will continue to "bear the brunt" of increasing storms and floods unless preventive action is taken.
In January, storm Klaus hit southern Europe,including France, Spain and Italy, causing at least 25 deaths and damage estimated at €600m. Britain has also been hit by recent record snowfalls.
The conference heard that such events will remain a "major threat" in coming years.
The warning comes after EU environment commissioner Stavros Dimas last week warned that natural disasters posed a "growing threat" for member states.
"We must do all we can in order to reduce natural disasters impacts by being prepared as best we can," he said.
His comments were echoed by Margareta Wahlstrom, UN assistant secretary-general for disaster risk reduction, at the conference on Wednesday.
"Storms, floods and heatwaves are major threats to Europe. It is urgent to invest in disaster risk reduction policies to adapt to climate change," said the Swede.
"These investments are the best governments can make to protect their most vulnerable populations and avoid huge economic losses in the future."
The conference was organised by the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR).
It heard that in the past 20 years, 953 disasters killed 88,671 people in Europe.
Spain had the highest number of victims among European countries and Russia the highest number of disasters (120).
Debarati Guha-Sapir, of the University of Louvain in Belgium, said weather-related disasters "have devastating effects on infrastructures which have on average, a higher value in Europe than in Asia or Africa."
He added, "This trend will probably continue to rise as floods and storms are expected to become more frequent and severe in the future in Europe."
Last week, the commission announced two communications related to disasters. These include more training and awareness raising, improved access to early warning systems and establishing an EU-wide inventory of existing information and 'best practices."
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