Humans in the Eye of the Storm: Who Suffers Most from Extreme Weather and How We Respond

By Dr. Hassan Humeida

KIEL, GERMANY: We all live under the same sky, but we do not feel the weather in the same way. As the climate crisis relentlessly heats up the planet, storms, droughts, and floods are unleashed with a profound social imbalance. Extreme weather events do not strike an abstract global community—they hit specific, vulnerable groups right at the core of their existence. How we deal with this permanent threat will determine whether communities survive or collapse.

The Most Vulnerable Groups: On the Front Lines: Climate scientists and sociologists agree: vulnerability to extreme weather is tightly linked to economic and social status. Globally, three groups are particularly in focus.

1. Smallholders and Indigenous Communities: More than two billion people worldwide depend directly on small-scale agriculture. When rainy seasons fail or monsoons wash away seeds, there is no safety net. Through the destruction of their ecosystems—such as fires in the Amazon—indigenous peoples lose not only their food, but their entire culture and homeland.
2. People in Informal Settlements (Slums): In the rapidly growing megacities of the Global South, millions live in makeshift shelters. These corrugated iron shacks offer neither protection from extreme heat nor stability during flash floods or landslides. Sewage systems are non-existent, meaning that deadly epidemics loom after every flood.
3. Medically Vulnerable Groups: Even in wealthy countries like Germany, the climate crisis claims victims. Older people, the chronically ill, and the homeless are left defenseless against extreme heatwaves. Biologically, their bodies can barely compensate for the extreme heat, leading to massive excess mortality during summer weeks.

Dealing With the Situation: Adaptation Instead of Powerlessness: However, humanity is not completely helpless in the face of extreme weather. Communities worldwide are developing strategies to defy this altered reality. This approach can be divided into three major pillars:

• Technical Adaptation and Infrastructure: In cities, the primary goal is to become more resilient. The spectrum ranges from massive flood barriers in coastal metropolises to simple structural changes. In Germany, there is an increasing focus on the “Sponge City” concept, where rainwater is deliberately stored in the ground instead of overloading the sewage system.
• Agricultural Innovation: Farmers worldwide are switching to heat-resistant, traditional crops (such as millet instead of corn in parts of Africa). In addition, smart irrigation systems that utilize every drop of water efficiently are gaining importance.
• Social Protection Mechanisms: Today, early warning systems via SMS services save tens of thousands of lives during approaching cyclones in countries like Bangladesh. Furthermore, so-called micro-climate insurance helps smallholders avoid complete financial ruin after a total crop failure.

Future Perspective: Dealing with extreme weather cannot just be a damage-repair shop. As long as greenhouse gas emissions do not fall drastically, protective walls will eventually be breached and fields will become too hot for any seed.

Genuine climate protection and targeted financial support for the affected groups are not an option, but a necessity for survival. Wealthier nations, which have historically contributed the most to global warming, have a duty to significantly assist poorer regions in adapting to this harsh new world.