Although the number of natural disasters was lower than in 2007, the catastrophes that there were proved to be more destructive in terms of the number of victims and the financial cost of the damage caused, Germany-based Munich Re said in its annual assessment.

Most devastating was Cyclone Nargis, which battered Myanmar in May to kill more than 135,000 people, and the earthquake that shook China's Sichuan province the same month which left 70,000 dead, 18,000 missing and almost five million homeless, Munich Re said.

"This continues the long-term trend we have been observing. Climate change has already started and is very probably contributing to increasingly frequent weather extremes and ensuing natural catastrophes," Munich Re board member Torsten Jeworrek said in a statement.

The world needed "effective and binding rules on CO2 emissions, so that climate change is curbed and future generations do not have to live with weather scenarios that are difficult to control," Jeworrek said.

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