WHERE: This year’s heatwave killed at least 15,000 people in Europe

At least 15,000 deaths in Europe are directly related to the severe heat waves that hit the continent in the summer of 2022, according to an estimate – still with incomplete data – published today by the World Health Organization on the occasion of COP27, the UN Climate Conference.

The summer of 2022 was the hottest on record in the Old Continent, causing multiple high temperature records and wildfires with dramatic consequences.

“Based on national data already published, it is estimated that 15,000 people died specifically from heat in 2022,” said the director of the WHO European branch, Hans Kluge.

This account, which includes 4,500 deaths in Germany, almost 4,000 in Spain, more than 3,200 in the United Kingdom and 1,000 in Portugal; “expected to increase, as some countries have reported very high numbers of heat-related deaths,” it said.

The WHO thus underlines that the French Institute of Statistics, Insee, recorded excess mortality with 11,000 deaths in the summer of 2022 compared to the summer of 2019 that preceded the Covid pandemic, which is “probably” explained by the very strong heat recorded specifically in June and July.

According to WHO data, extreme temperatures are responsible for 148,000 deaths in Europe in the last 50 years.

With 15,000 deaths and possibly more in a single year, 2022 alone would account for more than 10% of that total.

“Climate change is already killing us, but strong action today can prevent more deaths,” the UN health agency stressed during COP27 in Egypt.

According to a United Nations report published last week, the European continent is the fastest warming continent, recording a temperature increase more than twice the global average over the past thirty years.

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