Insurance boss

“This means we are no longer viable”

Kurt Weinberger: "We need our landscape, we have to protect it."

(Bild: Antal Imre/Imre Antal)

This year was once again the warmest year in recorded history. Despite this, the concreting over continues. The head of Hagelversicherung, Kurt Weinberger, is now warning of the consequences of global warming and calling for a rapid rethink in politics.

"Krone": 2024 was a flood year in eastern Austria: the end of soil sealing should have come. But that's not the case?
Kurt Weinberger: The world is burning and drowning - even in Austria. We had the warmest February, the warmest March and the warmest August since weather records have been kept. And 2024 will be the warmest year in recorded history. 2023 was already the warmest year in recorded history. Global warming means an increase in extreme weather events. In the 1980s, we had 13 hot days nationally in Vienna, i.e. days with a temperature of 30 degrees. This year we had 52, four times as many. When it gets warmer, it also means that there is more water vapor in the atmosphere and there is a change in the weather from a period of good weather to a period of bad weather, where we have more excessive precipitation and the damage increases.