50,000 Heat Deaths Tied to Warming
A new study links two-thirds of summer fatalities in 854 cities to fossil fuel emissions.
By Malik Salazar ·
European cities recorded their highest summer mortality rates in decades as temperatures spiked across the continent. Researchers at Imperial College London analyzed data from 854 European cities to determine how much of the death toll was caused by human-driven climate change.
The team estimated that 50,391 people died due to extreme heat between June and August. Of those deaths, 32,619 were attributed to the additional warming caused by burning coal, oil, and gas. This figure represents a 71 percent increase over the 29,480 excess deaths recorded during the 2022 heatwave.
The deadliest period occurred between June 17 and July 1, when temperatures ran 5.3 degrees Celsius above normal. Garyfallos Konstantinoudis, a co-author and biostatistician at Imperial College London, noted that this three-week window accounted for about one-third of the total fatalities. While more than half of the victims were aged 85 or older, the heat also killed more than 800 people between the ages of 20 and 44.
Clair Barnes, the study's lead author, stated that some cities experienced temperatures 12 degrees Celsius above normal. She explained that infrastructure in much of Western and Northern Europe was not designed for the current levels of heat. Barnes added that Europe, the fastest-warming continent, is now 2.5 degrees Celsius hotter than pre-industrial levels. This extra warming can shift conditions from merely uncomfortable to potentially deadly.
The authors cautioned that the figures are likely an underestimate because they exclude a deadly heat wave in May and cover only cities holding about 40 percent of Europe's population. Italy, France, Spain, and Germany recorded the highest death tolls. The team used computer simulations of a world without climate change to isolate the specific impact of global warming on mortality.
Barnes said the share of heat deaths attributable to warming has risen from about 45 percent in the early 2000s to 65 percent today. Because heat deaths are often underreported on certificates, the researchers relied on statistical models that account for age and each city's optimal temperature. They validated the model against government estimates, finding that their prediction of 2,700 excess deaths for the May and June heat waves in Britain closely matched the 2,800 reported by the UK health statistics agency.
Outside experts described the methods as state-of-the-art. Dr. Howard Frumkin, former director of the National Center for Environmental Health, said that hotter summers combined with better attribution tools are producing higher and more reliable counts. Dr. Courtney Howard, president-elect of the Canadian Medical Association, called for investment in early-warning systems and equitable access to cooling. Dr. Jonathan Patz of the University of Wisconsin-Madison argued that society must address fossil fuel burning to stop the problem at its source.
