80 percent of provinces with Climate Change risk in China, India, US

Summary

The Cross Dependency Initiative studied more than 2,600 states and provinces around the world to map the Gross Domestic Climate Risk to the built environment and ranked them by physical risk of damage from extreme weather and Climate Change in 2050. Only three countries — China, India, the United States – have 80 per cent of the top 50 most at-risk states and provinces, according to the study. The remaining are in Brazil, Pakistan, and Indonesia.

The study report introduces the Damage Ratio as “the annual average loss from extreme weather damage to a property as a fraction of the replacement cost of that property”.  The ratio enables comparability of physical risk unaffected by exchange rates, inflation and other variables. The website explains the difference between the aggregate damage ratio and average damage ratio — the former is the total amount of damage to the built environment in a particular province while the average provides insight into states and provinces that may have fewer properties but which may be subjected to greater or more widespread damage which increases the proportion of damage, according to the website.

The ranking assesses the effects of Climate Change on the global environment based on a selection of information, data, scientific methods and modelling techniques. The data modelling helps with comparing extreme weather and climate risks between various different countries.