New Delhi, Dec. 8: Bangladesh, India and China are in the league of top 10 countries where extreme weather events claim the largest number of lives, the first analysis of the impact of climate change over the past 18 years has shown.

The Global Climate Risk Index released today by a non-government agency at the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen has shown that 11,000 extreme weather events have killed about 600,000 people and caused losses of $1.7 trillion.

Along with the grim statistics came another fiery forecast: this year is likely to be the fifth warmest on record and the first decade of this century the hottest since records began to be kept, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) said.

All the 10 countries worst affected by the extreme weather events between 1990 and 2008 were developing countries from the low-income or lower-middle income groups.

Environment minister Jairam Ramesh had pointed out in Parliament last week that India was the most vulnerable country to climate change — given its high dependence on the monsoon and the threat of climate change to several critical ecological zones.

The extent of the loss of life adds a dimension larger than compulsions of development — the excuse by developing countries not to cut emissions — to nascent domestic efforts to launch clean-up initiatives without waiting for the West, the biggest polluters, to show the way.

The climate summit is expected to finalise an accord to reduce or limit Earth-warming greenhouse gas emissions. It is also tasked with the formulation of mechanisms to get industrialised countries to support developing countries through finance and technology to adapt to the consequences of climate change.

Extreme weather claimed the highest lives in Bangladesh where the annual death toll was 8,241, according to the climate risk index, a tool used by the NGO Germanwatch to rank countries according to their vulnerability.

“It may appear surprising India and China rank among the top 10 affected countries because both have large populations — so the relative impacts might be expected to be low,” said Sven Harmeling, senior adviser on climate with Germanwatch.

“But (the data show) both are regularly hit by extreme events such as flooding and storms,” Harmeling told The Telegraph. India’s annual death toll is 3,255 while China’s figure is 2,023.

“Hopefully, this will create additional pressure to develop an ambitious adaptation action framework, including an international insurance mechanism which assists countries hit by very severe events,” Harmeling said.

The climate risk index is a mathematical tool whose value for each country depends on the number of deaths and economic losses from extreme events, and the losses as a proportion of the country's gross domestic product.

The WMO report for 2009 highlights the scale of global vulnerability — citing droughts in Australia, China, East Africa and India and intense storms and rain and snow events in Europe, Asia and North America.

Warmest decade

The WMO declared the first decade of the 21st century — 2000-2009 — as the “warmest decade” and put 2009 among the top 10 warmest years on record since instrumental weather observations began in 1850.

The hottest year on record, 1998, coincided with a powerful El Nino, and a new El Nino developed this year. “It’s getting warmer and warmer. The warming trend is increasing,” WMO head Michel Jarraud told Reuters.