More than half of the 68,000 heat-related deaths during the scorching European summer in 2022 were caused by climate change, a study has found.
Researchers from Barcelona Institute for Global Health revealed human-induced climate change, brought on by the burning of fossil fuels and destruction of nature, may have resulted in 38,000 more deaths in 2022.
It was the year that saw the hottest summer on record and a death toll about 10 times greater than the number of homicides in Europe during the whole year.
Warm weather had killed more women than men, more southern Europeans than northern Europeans, and more individuals over the age of 64 in comparison to those who were younger.
While scientists have previously established a link between carbon pollution and hotter heatwaves, they were unaware of how much carbon pollution had driven up the death toll.
It has now been revealed the generally higher vulnerability of these groups was exacerbated by anthropogenic warming, and the clogging of the atmosphere by greenhouse pollutants.
To estimate how many more people die as a result of hot weather, an existing heat and health data model for 35 European countries was examined alongside temperatures for a hypothetical world in which humans had not heated the planet.
Researchers concluded climate change was behind 22,501 heat deaths in women and 14,026 heat deaths in men, but also highlighted human-induced climate change has exacerbated the heat-related mortality during other exceptionally hot summers.
During 2015–2021, between 44 per cent and 54 per cent of summer heat-related mortality can be attributed to anthropogenic warming.
The study’s lead authors have warned that without mitigation action to combat heat-related deaths, the mortality rate is also “likely to speed up” in the near future.
They said: “Our study urgently calls for national governments and agencies in Europe to increase the ambition and effectiveness of heat surveillance and prevention measures, new adaptation strategies, and global mitigation efforts.”
