More than 50,000 people have died from excess heat this summer in urban areas of the 27 countries of the European Union (EU), as well as the United Kingdom, Norway, and Switzerland, according to estimates by scientists from Imperial College London and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, compiled in two peer-reviewed articles published in the journal Nature Health. The authors attribute about two-thirds of these deaths to climate change.
The mortality figure in urban areas, estimated using models for this year's summer, is the highest in the 26 years since 2000 and is well above the next highest, corresponding to 2022, with about 29,000 deaths, and 2003, with about 28,000. By region, southern and western Europe recorded the highest temperatures, as well as the highest estimated mortality rates.
Even so, thousands of deaths are also estimated to have occurred in urban regions of usually cooler northern European countries, such as the United Kingdom, where around 4,500 were recorded. Of the 50,000 deaths, an estimated one-third occurred between June 17 and July 1, when average daily temperatures across the region were more than 5 °C above average.
More than 6,000 deaths under 65 years old
Furthermore, although heat-related mortality primarily affects older people, an estimated 6,000 people under 65 years old died in the urban areas analyzed due to heat this summer. The research also warns that the proportion of deaths attributable to climate change has also grown.
At the beginning of the century, climate change was estimated to be responsible for about 40% of heat-related deaths, a proportion that in 2026 has increased to nearly two-thirds. To reach these conclusions, researchers studied 854 urban areas, representing about 40% of the population of the thirty countries included in the research.
Temperature models and excess mortality
Using temperature records and models based on the historical relationship between heat and mortality, the authors estimated the excess heat-related deaths that would have occurred in each urban area during the summers from 2000 to 2026. As they explain, this methodology produces results consistent with official excess mortality statistics subsequently published by national health authorities.
They also calculated additional deaths caused by climate change by comparing recorded temperatures in each urban area with those that would have been expected without the addition of greenhouse gases.
A warning about city adaptation
The extreme weather and climate change researcher at the Centre for Environmental Policy at Imperial College London, Dr. Clair Barnes, has stated that it can be said "with quite certainty" that the summer of 2026 was very likely the worst on record for heat-related mortality in much of Europe.
"These figures are a tragic reminder that our warmer, more extreme summers are having an increasingly severe impact on public health. Behind these statistics are real people who lost their lives and real families who mourn them," she lamented.
For the expert, these figures are also a reminder of both the "imperative need" to implement targeted interventions to protect the most vulnerable to this increasingly extreme heat and the urgency of carrying out a rapid energy transition to slow the pace of climate change and limit future global warming.
For his part, assistant professor, statistician, and epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, Dr. Pierre Masselot, emphasized that this summer has been another warning that global warming "is everyone's problem" and that "the entire population is affected."
"It is increasingly clear that our cities are poorly adapted to rising heat, and it is crucial that we improve our efforts towards adaptation. This means cooling cities through more green spaces and less pollution, and providing medical care to affected populations," he stressed.