Munich Re, a leading global re-insurance group, said that natural catastrophes took many fewer lives and caused much less damage on average in 2009 than in the previous decade.

But the group nonetheless pointed to a higher total number of destructive events, around 850, than the long-term average since 1950, and deplored failure to achieve a breakthrough at the Copenhagen climate summit.

In its annual look at the cost of natural catastrophes, Munich Re said: "Losses were far lower this year than in 2008 due to the absence on the whole of major catastrophes and a very benign North Atlantic hurricane season."

It put the death toll this year at "around 10,000," which was well below the average of 75,000 in each of the past 10 years.

In monetary terms too, losses this year were much lower than the levels in previous years, the re-insurance giant said.

It estimated total economic losses this year at €35 billion and insured losses at €15.3 billion.

That compared with economic losses of around €139 billion and insured losses of €35 billion last year.

In the first decade of the century, those numbers have averaged €80 billion and €25 billion respectively, the German group calculated.

Munich Re's head of geo risk research, Peter Hoeppe, nonetheless warned that "the trend towards an increase in weather-related catastrophes continues."