Deaths from extreme heat are projected to rise sharply in the coming years, far outpacing an expected slowdown in cold-related deaths.
Extreme heat and cold cause approximately 407,500 deaths in Europe every year, and if nothing further is done to combat climate change, an additional 55,000 people will die annually by the year 2100 – a 13.5 per cent increase, according to new estimates from European Commission researchers.
Currently, the vast majority of Europe’s temperature-related deaths are tied to cold weather, but extreme heat will become an increasingly lethal challenge, particularly in southern Europe and areas with more elderly people, according to the study, which was published in The Lancet Public Health journal.
The analysis assumed a 3°C increase in global warming, which is at the upper end of the current trajectory, according to the latest United Nations estimates. It’s also double the 1.5°C goal set by the Paris Agreement.
“Europe, like the rest of the world, is facing a growing number of extremely hot days, and countries are not prepared for the impacts this will have on the health of their populations,” Madeleine Thomson, head of climate impacts and adaptation at the UK-based health foundation the Wellcome Trust, which was not involved in the study, said in an email.
The researchers analysed data for nearly 1,400 regions in 30 countries across Europe to estimate the number of deaths from extreme heat and cold weather over time, and took population ageing into account to predict how these levels could change by 2100.
That approach allowed them to identify “hotspots where people will be worst affected in the future,” Juan-Carlos Ciscar, one of the study authors and a scientific officer at the Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC), said in a statement.
Between 1991 and 2020, there were about 364,000 cold-related deaths and 44,000 heat-related deaths per year across Europe, with cold killing more people in eastern Europe and extreme heat causing more fatalities in southern Europe, the study found.
These regional disparities are only expected to grow, according to the researchers.
While the overall number of cold-related deaths should decline somewhat in the coming decades, they are expected to increase in Ireland, Norway, and Sweden, where the number of people aged 85 and up is growing.
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Heat-related deaths are also slated to rise sharply across the continent, with Spain, Italy, Greece, and parts of France to be most affected.
“With climate change, heatwaves are becoming more frequent, more intense and lasting longer,” Rebecca Emerton, a climate scientist at the EU-funded Copernicus Climate Change Service who was not involved with the study, told Euronews Health.
Notably, the new analysis is based on people living in cities, where heat may pose a greater health risk than in rural areas, and doesn’t take demographics like gender or ethnicity into account.
Even so, the findings indicate “there is a critical need for the development of more targeted policies to protect these areas and members of society most at risk from temperature extremes,” David García-León, a study author and JRC scientific officer, said in a statement.
Last month, UN Secretary-General António Guterres called for international cooperation to address extreme heat, with a focus on vulnerable groups, worker protection, and investment in renewable energy over fossil fuels in order to limit warming to 1.5°C.
The new study also follows a separate analysis that found that policy interventions to adapt to climate change over the past two decades have saved thousands of lives, but that more should be done to curb preventable deaths.
Those researchers, from the Barcelona Institute for Global Health, highlighted the role of early warning systems and heat prevention plans implemented after more than 70,000 people died as a result of scorching temperatures in 2003.
Extreme heat poses a health risk beyond death. It has also been tied to a higher risk of miscarriage for women working in extreme heat and can exacerbate mental illness.
People will also have to contend with the “indirect impacts” of wildfires, agricultural failure and other environmental and infrastructure problems, Thomson, from the Wellcome Trust, said.
These issues “will have knock-on effects on our lives,” she said.
