Physical climate risk analysis of over 200 000 hospitals exposes risk of shutdowns from extreme weather

"Climate change is increasingly impacting the health of people around the world.  Our analysis shows that without a rapid phase out of fossil fuels, the risks to global health will be exacerbated further, as thousands of hospitals become unable to deliver services during crises," said Dr Karl Mallon, Director of Science and Technology, XDI (Cross Dependency Initiative).

The 2023 XDI Global Hospital Infrastructure Physical Climate Risk Reportanalyses the physical risk to over 200,000 hospitals around the world to six climate change hazards: coastal inundation, riverine flooding, surface water flooding, forest fire, extreme wind and cyclone wind.  The analysis focuses on physical damage to building structures, and calculates how different emission scenarios can reduce risk.

As part of the report, XDI is releasing the names, location and level of risk (high, medium, low) for each individual hospital in the analysis (200,216 hospitals).  XDI is urging all governments to check for high risk hospitals in their region and conduct further analysis to understand and reduce this risk.

Key findings

"Governments have a duty to populations to ensure the ongoing delivery of critical services. We urge all governments and health administrators to review this report and identify high risk hospitals in their jurisdiction so that they can take appropriate action," said Dr Mallon.

About XDI
The data behind XDI (Cross Dependency Initiative) has been helping global leaders price physical climate risk since 2007, making the group the world's longest standing independent specialist in physical climate risk and adaptation analytics. XDI is part of The Climate Risk Group.

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