If nothing is done to prevent it, 90,000 Europeans could die each year from heat waves by the end of the century in the biggest climate-related health threat, the European Health Agency warned on Wednesday 8 November. environment (EEA). “Without adaptation measures, and under a scenario of global warming of 3°C by 2,100, 90,000 Europeans could die from heat waves each year”noted the EEA.
With a warming of 1.5°C targeted by the Paris agreement, this figure is reduced to 30,000 deaths per year, she underlines based on a study published in 2020. Between 1980 and 2020, some 129,000 Europeans died of heat, according to the figures, with a strong acceleration during the recent period.
The risk and degradation factors are known: the increased frequency of
heat waves, the development of urbanization which makes Europeans vulnerable, particularly in the south of the old continent, without forgetting the more fragile target of an aging population.
15,000 deaths in 2022
On Monday, the European office of the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that at least 15,000 deaths in Europe were directly linked to severe heat waves during the summer of 2022. In addition to repeated heat waves, climate change makes the region increasingly prone to the emergence and transmission of infectious diseases.
Certain types of mosquitoes, vectors of malaria and dengue fever, stay longer in Europe, notes the EEA. The rise in temperatures also favors the proliferation of bacteria in the water, particularly in the Baltic Sea of Vibrio bacteria, the best known of which is responsible for cholera.
Prevention and monitoring measures should make it possible to reduce these morbid health consequences.
“A wide range of solutions must be implemented, including effective heat action plans, greening cities, designing and constructing appropriate buildings and adapting working hours and conditions”estimates the report according to which a large part of the deaths linked to extreme heat are avoidable in Europe.