The compound impact of extreme weather events and COVID-19

This paper was commissioned by the IFRC and the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre as an update of a first scan of the overlapping impacts of COVID-19 and climate-related disasters in September 2020, complemented by select illustrative case studies on how these compound risks have been playing out in practice around the world, to inform policy discussions in the UN and beyond, and to inspire further academic work on the compound impacts of COVID-19 and climate.

From the start of the COVID-19 pandemic until August 2021, extreme weather events have affected at least 139.2 million people and killed at least 17,242 people in at least 433 unique events. These figures are certainly an underestimate, as they do not include estimates of numbers of people affected by extreme temperatures, or mortality during drought events. One dimension of the compound risk of COVID-19 and climate extremes was the additional challenge of preparing for and responding to disasters during the pandemic, such as the constraints of physical distancing during evacuations and response operations.