An estimated 15,000 Europeans have died from record heat this year, according to the World Health Organization.
WHO regional director for Europe, Dr. Hans Henri Kluge, issued a statement on Monday titled “Climate change is already killing us, but strong action now can prevent more deaths.”
“Based on country data submitted so far, it is estimated that at least 15,000 people died specifically due to the heat in 2022. Among those, nearly 4,000 deaths in Spain, more than 1,000 in Portugal, more than 3,200 in the United Kingdom, and around 4,500 deaths in Germany were reported by health authorities during the 3 months of summer,” he said.
The statement, which comes during the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Egypt, notes that Europe saw the hottest summer on record this past summer, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service. The high temperatures led to the worst drought Europe has seen since the Middle Ages, per Agence France Presse, and the extreme heat caused death and infrastructure damage.
“Heat stress, when the body cannot cool itself, is the leading cause of weather-related death in the European Region,” the WHO statement said.
The death count is expected to increase as more countries report on excess deaths due to heat, Kluge said.
“For example, France’s National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE) reported that more than 11,000 more people died between 1 June and 22 August 2022 compared with the same period in 2019 — the last year before the COVID-19 pandemic,” the statement added. “INSEE suggested that these figures were ‘likely to be explained by the heatwave that occurred in mid-July, after an initial heatwave episode as early as mid-June.'”
According to the WHO, nearly 150,000 people have died because of extreme temperatures in Europe between 1961 and 2021.
Kluge said heat waves and other extreme weather will “lead to more diseases and deaths” in the coming decades unless “drastic” action is taken. He called on governments to develop health plans to address extreme summer heat and to implement a more sustainable model of consumption and production.
“At the individual and community level, we all need to substantially reduce our carbon emissions through more sustainable patterns of production and consumption, and by embracing a full and rapid transition towards clean and renewable energy,” the statement said. “We have the technology — we need to find ways for it to be accessible to all countries and implemented rapidly.”