A destroyed sunflower crop in Anduze, France, in August 2022. The region was wracked by drought and heatwaves. Credit: Patrick Aventurier / Getty Images
The 2022 heatwaves in Europe saw record-breaking temperatures and a surge in heat-related deaths across the continent.
According to a new study in npj Climate and Atmospheric Science, more than half of the almost 70,000 deaths can be attributed to human-caused climate change.
“Our study urgently calls on governments and national authorities in Europe to increase the ambition and effectiveness of surveillance and prevention measures; new adaptation strategies; and global mitigation efforts,” says study co-author Associate Professor Joan Ballester Claramunt, a researcher at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health in Spain.
The team had previously analysed temperature and mortality data from 35 European countries to determine the number of heat-related deaths in the summer of 2022.
In total, they found 68,593 heat-related deaths.
In this study, the team used epidemiological models and historic temperature records to figure out how many of these deaths could be linked to climate change.
They found that 38,154 deaths, or 56% of the total, could have been avoided were it not for anthropogenic warming.
“This study sheds light on the extent to which global warming impacts public health,” says lead author Thessa Beck, a researcher at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health.
“While we observe an increase of heat-related mortality across nearly all the countries analysed, not everyone is affected equally, with women and the elderly particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of rising temperatures.”
Like in Australia, temperatures in Europe are rising faster than the rest of the world’s average. The summer of 2023 was warmer than average, although not record-breaking, according to the EU’s Copernicus climate satellite monitoring program, while the summer of 2024 was once again the hottest on record both globally and in Europe.
“Without strong action, record temperatures and heat-related mortality will continue to rise in the coming years,” says Ballester Claramunt.
