Losses from fires in Europe exceeded 3 billion euros - FT
Kyiv • UNN
Forest fires in Europe caused damages of 3.1 billion euros for just five eurozone countries. The real losses could be significantly higher due to property damage and tourism disruptions.
Losses from fires in Europe this year have already exceeded 3 billion euros, according to an analysis by the Financial Times, reports UNN.
Forest fires and heatwaves that have swept through France, Spain and other parts of Europe have already cost more than 3 billion euros this year, highlighting the growing number of losses from fires caused by climate change
Nearly half a million hectares burned in the first two months of the fire season, "resulting in economic losses of 3.1 billion euros for just the five most affected eurozone countries, including Portugal, Greece and Romania." This significantly exceeds the European Commission's estimates of the average annual impact on the entire EU of 2.5 billion euros.
The FT's estimates are based on the methodology underlying the European Commission's data and corresponding calculations by the French government, and represent so-called "restoration" costs aimed at returning burned areas to their previous state - a way of determining their economic value. The average cost of replanting and maintaining a hectare varies by country, reflecting land cover types and forest age.
"The overall impact will ultimately be much higher. Insurers, households and businesses are still tallying losses from property and crop damage, as well as disruptions to the tourism industry in the height of summer," the publication says.
Other costs in the form of higher insurance premiums or uninsured property, reduced visitor numbers and the need for significant spending on firefighting equipment will materialize over time, the publication notes.
The calculations, it is stated, also do not fully reflect the latest fires in Greece, where the prime minister said teams will quickly intervene to record damages in order to provide state support to those who have lost property.
Separately, losses from drought have yet to be identified, as falling water levels in the Rhine and Danube rivers lead to disruptions in the supply of goods and reduced production. German chemical companies such as BASF, Covestro and Evonik have plants concentrated along the Rhine.
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Record low levels of the Danube could lead to the shutdown of a Hungarian nuclear power plant that supplies nearly half of the country's electricity.
Romania was also forced to shut down one of the two reactors at the Cernavoda nuclear power plant. Both receive cooling water from the river.
Sarah Meyer, a climate economics expert at ETH Zurich, said the true economic damage from fires alone could be more than three times higher than the average annual GDP losses of 2.1 billion euros that she estimates wildfires caused to the regional economies of Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece from 2011 to 2018.
"If fires reach cities, these losses will be much, much higher," Meyer said.
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