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Heat Stress Deaths Show Europe Isn’t Ready for Climate Change

More than 60,000 people across Europe died from heat stress last year, a study found, suggesting the continent’s response to past summers is not enough.

A visitor cools themselves at a water fountain at Ciutadella Park in Barcelona on Aug. 3, 2022. 

A visitor cools themselves at a water fountain at Ciutadella Park in Barcelona on Aug. 3, 2022. 

Photographer: Angel Garcia/Bloomberg

More than 60,000 people died as a result of record-breaking temperatures in Europe last summer, a study has found, raising concerns about multiple countries’ lack of preparation for extreme heat fueled by climate change. 

Between May 30 and Sept. 4 of last year, there were 61,672 deaths caused by hot weather across 35 European countries, according to the study by researchers at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health and the French National Institute of Health, published in the journal Nature Medicine. Last year’s was the warmest summer ever recorded on the continent, breaking a record set just one year earlier. Temperatures were more than 2C above the recent average for countries that included France, Switzerland and Spain.