Unsurprisingly, cold kills more than heat in Europe. From 1991 to 2020, heat-related deaths on the Old Continent amounted to an average of 43,729, compared to 363,809 people who died in the cold, according to a study published Wednesday in the British scientific journal The Lancet. But this observation could change at the end of the century. According to this study, heat deaths in Europe could triple by 2100, to be responsible for the deaths of 128,809 people per year if temperatures rise by 3°C.
There are expected to be many more heat-related deaths as the climate warms and populations age, while cold-related deaths decline only slightly, says David Garcia Leon from the Joint Research Center (JRC) of the European Commission, one of the co-authors of the study. The most affected regions would be largely located in southern European countries such as Italy, Greece and Spain, and even the south of France.
In their writings, the researchers say that the annual number of deaths from cold and heat in Europe could increase from 407,000 people today to 450,000 in 2100. Many climate skeptics claim that global warming is beneficial for society because, according to them, fewer people will die of cold in the future. However, the researchers conclude that the increase in the number of deaths due to heat, increasing by 13.5% by 2100, would largely exceed the reduction in the number of deaths due to cold, if global warming increases by 3 or 4°C.
Several factors are put forward, including the aging of the population and its greater vulnerability to dangerous temperatures. The study specifies that the category of people most affected would be those over 85 years old. For their analysis, published after a summer when fires strongly affected Greece, Canada and the United States, the scientists based themselves on data from 854 cities.
