Yves right here. The submit beneath summarizes an necessary submit printed by the European Funding Financial institution, which estimated local weather threat for 170 nations. Evidently, it is a crucial train and one hopes different specialists will search to refine it. Even utilizing a pdf compressor, the research correct was too giant to embed, however you could find it right here. Now we have included the juicy half, the nation rankings, on the finish of this submit. .
I’ve not learn the report in full however was shocked at a number of the findings, per the nation rating. 1 = international common threat, so increased figures are worse.
I discover a number of the outcomes to be curious:
I’ve seen Bangladesh cited, for practically twenty years, as in even in early Pentagon-connected stories in regards to the geopolitical dangers of climate-change mass migration because of flooding. That’s confirmed in a 2023 paper by the LSE:
Practically 60% of Bangladesh’s inhabitants is uncovered to excessive flood threat, a better proportion of the inhabitants than in another nation on the planet aside from the Netherlands, and round 45% are uncovered to excessive fluvial flood threat, the best determine on the planet.
Contemplate additionally:
Huh? The UK is just not even remotely self-sufficient in meals. Frequent flooding and sudden warmth waves have additional diminished farm output. We posted that UK dairy farmers are utilizing grain that they had deliberate to make use of for winter feeding now because of not with the ability to graze them. From the BBC earlier within the week in Farmers face disaster as drought causes grass to fail:
Dairy farmers are going through a disaster, spending 1000’s of kilos feeding their cattle grain that ought to be saved for the winter.
This yr’s lengthy, dry spring – the warmest and sunniest on report – has compelled many farmers to take unprecedented motion.
Sarah Godwin, a dairy farmer in north Wiltshire, has needed to take feed out to her cows for the primary time in her life. She mentioned she had “by no means identified a season like this, by no means identified the warmth, the dearth of rain, and for therefore lengthy”…
“The grass is totally dried up,” Mrs Godwin defined.
“There’s no goodness in it, it’s simply utterly stalky with no dietary worth in any respect.”
I’ve not learn the methodology rigorously, however a fast search confirmed no reference to “meals” in the primary textual content (there have been research within the references that did embrace “meals safety” of their titles, and just one paragraph that had the phrase “water” in it.
This appears to be the supply of the blind spot in regards to the necessity of feeding populations:
To quantify the affect of local weather change, we first accumulate structural details about the financial system (e.g., the financial contribution of agriculture, inhabitants) and climate-related info (e.g., temperatures, share of the inhabitants uncovered to sea stage rise). We then sometimes resort to outcomes of empirical research and the tutorial literature to remodel the information into financial impacts. Lastly, adaptation capability, additionally expressed in share factors of GDP, is accounted for. The assorted bodily threat elements are mentioned beneath, the underlying variables are proven in Desk 1 and Desk 2, and Appendix A.1 comprises the methodological particulars
So the main focus appears to be totally on financial results, and never broader survival.
That will clarify these scores:
However this rating makes intuitive sense:
Uruguay has produced practically all of its electrical energy from hydropower (though there’s some threat long run of water shortage). It isn’t solely self-sufficient in meals however is a big exporter given its measurement. It was very excessive on my listing of potential expat locations because of being nicely positioned in mild of local weather change.
By Matteo Ferrazzi, Senior Economist European Funding Financial institution, Fotios Kalantzis, Senior Economist European Funding Financial institution, and Sanne Zwart. Initially printed at VoxEU
Local weather threat is at ‘code pink’ stage for your entire of humanity, prompting buyers and policymakers to focus not solely on the dangers but additionally on the alternatives associated to the inexperienced transition and on methods to boost nations’ resilience to local weather change. This column presents new local weather threat scores for greater than 170 nations, distinguishing between bodily and transition dangers. The scores reveal that rising and growing economies are probably the most uncovered to bodily dangers, primarily because of acute bodily occasions, sea stage rise, and excessive temperatures. Transition dangers are extra related for fossil gasoline producers and wealthier nations.
Curiosity in country-level local weather dangers has grown lately, specifically within the years following the 2015 Paris Settlement, which outlined clear decarbonisation pathways for every nation. Buyers are additionally progressively conscious in regards to the long-term dangers of local weather change. Certainly, the publicity to bodily local weather threat can have adverse implications for, amongst different issues, sovereign debt (Zenios 2022, Bernhofen et al. 2024), the price of debt and sovereign scores (Beirne et al. 2021, Normal & Poor’s 2015, Agarwala et al. 2021, Revoltella et al. 2022), fiscal sustainability (Agarwala et al. 2021), and even on political stability (Moody’s 2016, Fitch 2022, Volz et al. 2020). Transition threat, in contrast, is linked to 3 essential elements: insurance policies, shifts in client preferences, and technological breakthroughs (Semeniuk et al. 2020). Reputational results and authorized actions because of failure to adjust to environmental requirements are additionally related.
In follow, three broad approaches are used to evaluate local weather threat on the nation stage: modelling, situation evaluation, and (index-based) scores. Multidimensional macroeconomic fashions goal to judge the macro impacts of local weather change. Some organisations are frequently growing situation analyses, typically based mostly on the output of the fashions, to sketch a number of believable and constant representations of the longer term (not forecasts) beneath completely different insurance policies and circumstances. Typically, such eventualities challenge the potential future outcomes of local weather change over the (very) long term (60-80 years from now). Along with modelling and situation evaluation, index-based scoring assist assess local weather threat and rank nations (for instance, the Notre Dame World Adaptation Initiative (ND GAIN) and Germanwatch). Rankings businesses have began to develop their very own assessments to enhance their score methodologies (Volz et al. 2020, Gratcheva et al. 2020). Usually, they mix environmental, social, and governance (ESG) standards to assist buyers in making knowledgeable funding selections.
New Local weather Danger Nation Scores
In a current paper (Ferrazzi et al. 2025 ), we current an index to measure local weather threat for over 170 nations, individually assessing bodily and transition threat (on a relative foundation – relative to different nations and relative to the scale of their economies) whereas accounting for adaptation and mitigation capability. Probably the most related threat elements are rigorously chosen, and the associated weights are assigned based mostly on the literature and empirical proof. Bodily threat scores mix the next:
acute threat: damages from excessive climate occasions, based mostly on historic realisations (as a share of GDP, thus relative to the scale of the financial system);
persistent threat: affect on agriculture, sea stage rise, affect on infrastructures, affect on labour productiveness because of warmth, water shortage (additionally as a share of GDP); and
adaptation capability, based mostly on the financial capacity to reply to shocks and the institutional capability of the nation (together with score, fiscal revenues, and governance indicators).
This method, based mostly on the relevance of impacts as a share of GDP, mechanically offers the relative significance of every threat issue for every nation, fixing the difficulty of discovering enough weights.
Transition threat scores replicate the efficiency of nations prior to now, at this time, and within the close to future within the following:
CO2 emissions, and the commitments to mitigate emissions;
fossil gasoline rents from coal, fuel, and oil (as a share of GDP);
deployment of renewable power (as share of ultimate power consumption);
power depth of financial exercise; and
local weather coverage ambition, based mostly on the Nationally Decided Contributions (NDCs) required beneath the Paris Settlement.
The (only a few) present rankings use a lot of equally weighted indicators, implicitly assigning equal significance to quite a few threat elements. Our method, in distinction, is to pick out the related variables and assign correct weights, specializing in the subsequent 5-10 years because the time horizon. Furthermore, our method incorporates elements that transcend these sometimes thought of in present methodologies (persistent threat for bodily threat or mitigation for transition threat, for example) and depends solely on publicly accessible information.
Who Is Most at Danger?
Regardless of local weather change being at ‘code pink’ stage for your entire of humanity (IPCC 2021, Guterres 2021), every nation is uncovered to completely different threat intensities. Our local weather threat nation scores point out that rising and growing economies are most uncovered to bodily threat – specifically, to acute bodily occasions (hurricanes and storms, floods, fires), sea stage rise, and excessive temperatures. Typically, rising and growing economies are extra uncovered to increased temperatures (as further will increase of temperatures in already scorching environments affect human actions) and to agricultural losses (that are probably the most depending on climate situations). These nations are additionally much less capable of adapt (i.e. to guard themselves from the results of climate). Transition threat is extra related for fossil gasoline producers and wealthier nations which want to scale back emissions, and for these nations which might be much less ready for the transition to web zero by way of power effectivity and deployment of renewable power.
Determine 1 Contribution of threat elements
Word: Non-weighted common throughout nations. World common of the scores (together with adaptation) is 1.
Determine 2 Bodily and transition threat by nation
Word: Caribbean and Pacific (not clearly seen within the above map because of the measurement of the nations) face excessive bodily dangers and, respectively, excessive and elevated transition dangers. World common of the scores is 1 for each bodily and transition threat.
Conclusion
Summarising a rustic’s local weather dangers right into a rating is a posh activity that requires cautious selections concerning the target, timeframe, threat elements, and stage of granularity. The few local weather change indices accessible depend on a lot of equally weighted elements (‘as a lot as you could find’) and assume they’re all equally related. Our local weather threat nation scores as a substitute establish the primary threat elements and calibrate the weights based mostly on the literature and econometric evaluation.
Our local weather threat scores for 170 nations affirm that local weather dangers usually are not evenly distributed. Rising and growing economies are the extra weak to bodily threat and therefore want related investments in adaptation capability. In distinction, we discover that transition dangers are increased for wealthier and fossil fuel-producing nations.
Our country-level local weather change threat scores have a variety of makes use of and implications. First, as local weather dangers intensify and regulatory necessities evolve, banks and worldwide monetary establishments can use these scores to assist their threat administration processes. Certainly, utilizing an earlier classic of our scores, Cappiello et al. (2025) affirm the relevance of local weather dangers – specifically, bodily dangers – for sovereign credit score scores. The scores can function a risk-management instrument for sovereign counterparts but additionally as place to begin for evaluating climate-related dangers confronted by companies and banks inside a given nation.
Second, our scores can even characterize a possibility to establish mitigation and adaptation priorities and associated financing wants to boost local weather resilience.
Third, the outcomes spotlight the significance of worldwide cooperation, as local weather change is a broad-based phenomenon affecting nations throughout the globe and requires collective efforts.
Authors’ observe: The views expressed right here don’t essentially replicate the opinion of the European Funding Financial institution.
See authentic submit for references
00 local weather change rating desk
