LONDON: India is the most vulnerable country to climate change, followed byPakistan, the Philippines and Bangladesh, a ranking by HSBC showed onMonday.
The bank assessed 67 developed, emerging and frontier markets onvulnerability to the physical impacts of climate change, sensitivity toextreme weather events, exposure to energy transition risks and ability torespond to climate change.
The 67 nations represent almost a third of the world’s nation states, 80percent of the global population and 94 percent of global gross domesticproduct.
HSBC averaged the scores in each area for the countries in order to reachthe overall ranking. Some countries were highly vulnerable in some areasbut less so in others.
Of the four nations assessed by HSBC to be most vulnerable, India has saidclimate change could cut agricultural incomes, particularly unirrigatedareas that would be hit hardest by rising temperatures and declines inrainfall.
Pakistan, Bangladesh and the Philippines are susceptible to extreme weatherevents, such as storms and flooding.
Pakistan was ranked by HSBC among nations least well-equipped to respond toclimate risks.
South and southeast Asian countries accounted for half of the 10 mostvulnerable countries. Oman, Sri Lanka, Colombia, Mexico, Kenya and SouthAfrica are also in this group.
The five countries least vulnerable to climate change risk are Finland,Sweden, Norway, Estonia and New Zealand.
In its last ranking in 2016, HSBC only assessed G20 countries forvulnerability to climate risk. – Agencies