It’s not news that it’s hot: this summer, we’ve had five major heatwaves. Extreme heat killed at least 25,000 people in Western Europe alone, according to a Bloomberg analysis .
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Yet heat mortality is nothing new. Over the past four years, extreme heat has killed more than 200,000 Europeans . Nearly all of those deaths were preventable, Europe’s regional director for the World Health Organization, Hans Kluge, stated in a speech this June.
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Over the next two decades, most European countries introduced plans to prepare for and repond to heatwaves. By 2019, at least 16 European countries had some form of a heat-health action plan.
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Gender also plays a role: in 2022, heat-related mortality was 63% higher in women than men. “Gender has been completely missing in the discussion,” said Ronita Bardhan, professor of sustainable built environment and health at the University of Cambridge. “Women who are restricted indoors experience heat exposure at an intensity and frequency that is is rarely measured, so an important part of the heat burden remains invisible.”
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And even if the data were perfect, heat-related deaths don’t register emotionally or medically the way a flood does. Bardhan calls heat an invisible, silent killer: “It doesn’t really leave behind a big mark when we are looking in comparison to other hazards, like wildfire or floods, making the true heat health burden much easier to overlook.”
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