1,500 Deaths in Europe’s Heat Wave Were Due to Climate Crisis, Study Shows

> Human-caused climate change was responsible for around 1,500 deaths during this year’s atypical heat wave across Europe, a newly published rapid study of mortality data suggests.

> The study, conducted by scientists at Imperial College of London and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, examined 2,300 heat-related deaths across 12 European cities during the heat wave from June 23 to July 2. About two-thirds of those deaths — approximately 1,500 — were **directly attributable to additional warming caused by the climate crisis**, scientists said.

> Those deaths only happened “because of climate change,” said study co-author Friederike Otto, a climate scientist at Imperial College. “**They would not have died if it would not have been for our burning of oil, coal and gas in the last century.**” Temperatures across those 12 cities were **2 to 4 degrees Celsius above what would have naturally occurred if not for human-caused climate change**, the scientists discovered.

> The climate crisis also likely contributed to higher rates of wildfires seen across Europe. More than 200,000 hectares of land have burned across European Union member states since the start of the year, more than twice the average that has burned annually from 2006 to 2024. Around 1,118 wildfires have been detected across the EU, too — **a 56 percent increase** from last year.

> “The evidence connecting the climate crisis and extreme wildfires is clear. Increased global temperatures and reduced moisture lead to drier conditions and extended fire seasons. Prolonged heatwaves can take what was once a natural event in the fire-cycle process and supercharge it into a maelstrom that devastates entire communities. And, crucially, worsening wildfires **mean larger amounts of stored carbon are released into the atmosphere**, further worsening climate change.”

I was in Northern Italy and Barcelona during this heat wave and as an American from the Southwestern U.S., it was brutal even for me. I don’t know how people in that heat could survive without A/C and I guess this article reinforces that.