Signal Disaster database records European heat deaths but almost none elsewhere

Summary

The report's analysis of extreme weather relies on EM-DAT, the longest-running and most widely used global disaster database. EM-DAT, however, depends on official statistics, which often arrive years late and vary greatly between countries and hazard types. For instance, it lists 60,000 European heat deaths for 2022 and 50,000 for 2023, yet almost none for the rest of the world in those years. The report therefore judges that heat-related deaths and economic losses in the database are far too low, probably by orders of magnitude. It suggests that the absence of any heatwave from the 2025 to 2026 top lists may be linked to this reporting bias. The report nonetheless stresses that heatwaves keep threatening lives and livelihoods worldwide.