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Heat-induced losses

Εxtreme heat induces losses, including impacts on health, livelihoods, ecosystems, and economic activity.

Understand how heat events translate into direct and indirect losses, as well as the factors that influence their scale and distribution. The following materials support a better understanding of heat-related losses to inform proactive risk reduction.

Explore different approaches to measure heat-related losses.

Every year, the equivalent of 300+ million full-time jobs are lost — not to layoffs, but because work has simply become too hot to do.
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How many people die from extreme temperatures: part two

Climate change will have very unequal impacts, with fewer deaths at higher latitudes but increased heatwave deaths across the tropics.

Our World in Data (OWID)
Update
How many people die from extreme temperatures: part one

Cold deaths vastly outnumber heat-related ones, but mostly due to “moderate” rather than extremely cold conditions.

Our World in Data (OWID)
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Documents and publications
Summer residential cooling outlook: Residential electric utility expenditures projected to reach record levels, highest in 10 years

Due to the unprecedented rise in summer temperatures and higher rates of extreme heat events over the last ten years, the cost of summer cooling has risen from $476 in 2014 to a predicted $719 in 2024.

National Energy Assistance Directors Association
Food market
Research briefs
Extreme heat drives up food prices. Just how bad will it get?

New research shows that climate change is already fueling heatflation, with worse to come.

Grist Magazine
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Documents and publications
The effect of heat waves on economic activity: evidence from Latin America

The researchers document that extreme heat has an economically and statistically significant negative effect on economic growth in Latin America

Inter-American Development Bank (IDB)
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USA: Heat is costing the economy billions in lost productivity

From meatpackers to home health aides, workers are struggling in sweltering temperatures and productivity is taking a hit.

New York Times, the
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Heat dome deemed deadliest and among costliest disasters

The 2021 heat dome that killed 619 people cost B.C. $5.5 billion by one measure

Black Press Media
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The health care costs of extreme heat

Daily climate and health care utilization data from Virginia illuminate the health care costs of extreme heat, which amount to approximately $1 billion every summer when extrapolated nationally.

Center for American Progress
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