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Weather & Science

Living in a Greener City Could Save Your Life

Increasing urban tree cover by 30% would prevent a third of excess deaths caused by hot weather, a study has found.

A family shelters in the shade of a tree at Ciutadella Park, part of Barcelona’s Climate Shelter Network (CSN), where residents can take shelter during extreme heat, in Barcelona, Spain, on Wednesday, Aug. 3, 2022. 

A family shelters in the shade of a tree at Ciutadella Park, part of Barcelona’s Climate Shelter Network (CSN), where residents can take shelter during extreme heat, in Barcelona, Spain, on Wednesday, Aug. 3, 2022. 

Photographer: Angel Garcia/Bloomberg
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Covering a third of cities with trees would significantly cool the urban environment and help thousands of people survive Europe’s increasingly hot summers, according to scientists. 

About one third of 6,700 premature deaths attributed to heat in 2015 — an average European summer — could have been prevented if 30% of city surfaces were planted with trees, according to a report published on Tuesday in The Lancet.