The index published this week by German environmental think tank Germanwatch analyzes quantified impacts of extreme weather events like floods, storms, heat waves and droughts in terms of fatalities and economic losses in 180 countries and territories.

Countries are ranked in four categories - death toll, deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, absolute losses in purchasing power parities (PPP) and losses per GDP unit.

The report stated Vietnam stood at 15th in annual fatalities between 2000 and 2019, 11th in losses in PPP and 47th in terms of both fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants and losses per GDP unit.

In 2019, Vietnam was the 38th most affected economy by climate change, according to the index. The nation was hit by eight tropical storms and four tropical depressions in 2019 that caused economic losses worth VND7 trillion ($302.6 million), Vietnam's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development reports.

Puerto Rico, Myanmar and Haiti were the most-affected countries during these two decades in the global climate risk index. They are followed by the Philippines, Mozambique and the Bahamas.

The countries most impacted by extreme weather events should consider the index as a warning sign that they are at risk of either frequent events or rare but extraordinary catastrophes, the report stated.

In the last twenty years, almost 480,000 people worldwide lost their lives due to more than 11,000 extreme weather events, with damages adding up to $2.56 trillion, it shows.

"The poorest countries are generally hit hardest by extreme weather events as they have a lower coping capacity and need more time to rebuild and recover. However, the index shows that high-income countries, including Germany and Japan, are increasingly affected by climate change."

Germanwatch uses data from the NatCatSERVICE database of Munich Reinsurance Company, a reinsurance firm based in Munich, Germany, as well as socioeconomic data from International Monetary Fund (IMF) to compile the CRI index.