People on the streets of Rome in June 2022. Heat-related deaths in Europe have increased by around 30% over the past 20 years, according to a new report.
Alessandra Tarantino/AP
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Alessandra Tarantino/AP
People on the streets of Rome in June 2022. Heat-related deaths in Europe have increased by around 30% over the past 20 years, according to a new report.
Alessandra Tarantino/AP
Europe is warming about twice as fast as the Earth as a whole, and that heat is killing large numbers of people during the summer months, according to a new report from European climate experts.
The number of heat-related deaths on the continent has increased by at least 30% over the past 20 years, according to analysis by Europe’s Copernicus climate change service and United Nations estimates.
“The impact on human health is more pronounced in cities, where most people live,” says José Álvaro Silva of the UN World Meteorological Organization. Not only are populations concentrated in urban areas, but cities heat up faster than rural areas because buildings and roads stay warmer for longer.
The summer of 2023 has clearly shown how dangerous heat can be for Europeans. During a heat wave in July, intense heat and humidity made it feel like 110 degrees or hotter across nearly half of southern Europe.
This is the kind of weather that can kill people if they don’t have access to air conditioning. The final death toll from the heatwave is still being calculated, but it would almost certainly be in the tens of thousands, according to researchers. A study estimates that more than 60,000 people died prematurely due to the July 2023 heatwave.
“Of all extreme weather conditions, extreme heat causes the greatest mortality,” says Chris Hewitt, director of the World Meteorological Organization.
Europe’s rapid warming is due to three factors. The continent is close to the Arctic, which is the fastest warming region on Earth. It’s also naturally located near warm oceans and air currents – which is why London’s winters are much more temperate than Chicago’s, even though London is further north.
But it also means that Europe is warming dangerously faster than places at similar latitudes, says Samantha Burgess, deputy director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service.
“We continue to see new records broken all the time,” Burgess says.
The danger posed by heat has many European cities scrambling to ensure their residents have access to air conditioning – and reliable electricity to power that air conditioning on the hottest days. Some of the world’s deadliest heatwaves have resulted in power outages, when the power grid fails in extremely hot weather.
In this regard, the new report contains some good news: Europe is increasingly turning to solar and wind power for its electricity, and these energy sources are increasingly reliable. 2023 was the second year in a row that the continent produced more electricity from renewable sources than from fossil fuels.
Shifting away from oil, gas and coal to electricity helps Europe reduce its emissions of global warming greenhouse gases, which will help curb deadly future warming.
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