In several coastal cities, land subsidence is much faster than the IPCC reported in its latest assessment, data for 48 coastal cities, representing 20% of the global urban population, shows.

Past economic losses by extreme weather events are not due to climate change. But ‘the times they are a changing‘. Today, many events do show a climate change fingerprint in loss and damage.

The global land area that is below mean sea level increases much faster in the earlier stages of sea level rise than previously thought. This is bad news for poor coastal communities in particular.

Over the last 100 years, the severity of droughts has increased in Europe. Not due to less precipitation, but to higher temperatures that lead to more evaporation by plants and from the soil.

Weather regimes with thunderstorms and lightning shift to the north, increasing lightning frequency at higher latitudes in the summer. More thunderstorms are also expected over the Alps.

The thawing of the permafrost in the Arctic is causing damage to the infrastructure and buildings of the Arctic states. Russia is expected to have the highest burden of costs.

On 7-8 December 2022, I will join the National Disasters Expo in Singapore, the world’s leading event for the management and mitigation of natural disasters.

Over 50% of global coastlines are rock coasts. Retreat rates of rock coast cliffs will likely accelerate this century, by at least 3–7 times present-day rates at a UK coast, scientists show.

Experts studied all the available information on sea level rise projections and concluded that 1.55 m sea level rise by 2100 is the plausible high-end estimate we should use for adaptation planning.

Each year the Lancet, one of the world’s leading medical journals, publishes a report on the global status on health and climate change. Health is still at the mercy of fossil fuels, they conclude.

Drained peatlands make up only 3% of the agricultural land in the European Union but emit 25% of the total agricultural greenhouse gas emissions. The advantages of rewetting them are manifold.

Without adequate flood protection, nearly one in four of the world’s population has at least 1% chance of getting wet feet, or worse, every year. Most of them live in low-income countries.

The impacts of dam building and land-use change on sediment fluxes in rivers outpace the growing threats from climate change, with dramatic consequences for densely populated river deltas.

Where land is used for high-intensity agriculture, the joint impact of agriculture and climate warming has reduced insect abundance and species richness by 49% and 27%, global observations show.

The 2021 floods in Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands were more than just ‘heavy rain turning into fast-flowing water’, experts conclude. We must adapt a ‘landscape perspective’ to flooding.

By 2100, compared with 2014, average summer in the Northern Hemisphere will last 20% longer under a moderate, and 50% longer under a high-end scenario of climate change.

Warming will be largest both in northern and southern Europe. In northern Europe, in particular the coldest winters will be less cold. In southern Europe, the hottest summers will be much hotter.

Climate change will increase heat stress for cattle. By the end of the century, heat stress could reduce global milk and meat production by between 3.7% and 9.8% of production value in 2005.

For 2050, economic impacts in terms of GDP losses may be up to 3.8 per cent under a low-end, and up to 7.3 per cent under a high-end scenario of climate change.

Half of European territory is now experiencing unusually warm temperatures in the summer compared to 50 years ago. Winter precipitation has increased in the North, drought intensity in the South.