India Ranks 9th Globally Among Countries Hit Hardest by Extreme Weather Since 1995, Says Report

India ranks ninth among the list of countries most affected by extreme weather events between 1995 and 2024, according to the Climate Risk Index (CRI) 2026 report published by Germanwatch.

The analysis was presented at the ongoing COP30 in Belem, Brazil. This is the second version of the report to be released this year, reported The Hindu. The top ten countries on the list are located in the Global South.

The CRI combines several indicators that measure disaster impacts in markedly different ways, which is calculated based on the economic and human effects of extreme weather events. The more severely a nation has been impacted by extreme weather events that are caused by human-induced climate change, the higher its ranking. 

However, only events with rapid onset, such as floods, storms, extreme temperatures, wildfires, and glacial lake outbursts, are analysed by the index.  Slow-onset phenomena such as increasing mean temperatures, sea level rise, ocean acidification, glacial retreat, etc. are not included.

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines in the Caribbean was the worst affected country in 2024 because of its exceptionally high economic losses per GDP as well as fatalities per 100,000. This was followed by Grenada in the same region, and Chad in central Africa. India’s rank for 2024 was 15.

According to the CRI analysis, India is affected by recurring and usually intense extreme weather events, which have, over the years, affected both people and the economy. In the last three decades, India faced around 430 extreme weather events like floods and landslides, heat waves, cyclones, and droughts, which affected more than a billion people in the country and resulted in inflation-adjusted losses of around $170 billion. More than 80,000 people were reported killed in these events.

In terms of the number of people most affected by extreme weather in 2024, India ranked third behind Bangladesh and the Philippines. Flooding was the worst disaster overall, which affected almost 50 million people across the world in 2024. This was followed by heat waves, which affected around 33 million, and droughts, which affected over 29 million. One of the worst events on record in 2024 was Typhoon Trami which hit the Philippines in October and killed more than a hundred people and affected millions.

India Among Most Vulnerable

According to a 2020 report published by the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW), more than 75% of India’s districts are classified as extreme-event hotspots, exposing hundreds of millions of people to floods, droughts and cyclones.

At the same time, Carbon Brief reported that many of India’s cities lack effective long-term heat resilience and adaptation plans—beyond emergency responses—leaving vulnerable communities at growing risk.