In Europe, heat kills 176 thousand people every year

Extreme heat, increasingly frequent and intense, causes on average 176 thousand victims per year in Europe, and 489 thousand in the world:the WHO alarm.

More than 176 thousand people they die on average every year in Europe for the effects of extreme heat.Out of a worldwide total of approx 489 thousand deaths registered between 2000 and 2019, this is the 36 percent of the total.This explains it a study published by the World Health Organization (WHO), which takes into account the data from 53 nations:the macro-area considered also includes some Asian nations.

In Europe, climate warming is faster than the global average

This is "a very high price", commented Hans Kluge, regional director of the United Nations institute.The WHO itself underlines how in Europe the climate warming both significantly more quick compared to the rest of the world.Consequently, also the impacts of the increase in temperature manifest themselves more quickly and more seriously.

In the macro-region, in fact, the three warmer years have been since weather data has been recorded regularly all recorded from 2020 onwards.And the ten hottest ever are all after 2007.“In some areas of the world – explains the WHO – temperatures have already risen to unbearable levels.Over the last twenty years, the mortality linked to the heat there is increased by 30 percent”.

“Thermal stress” is the main cause of death

What weighs heavily on the 489 thousand overall deaths is above all the phenomenon of “thermal stress”, what happens when the Human Body it is no longer able to maintain its temperature in a range between 36 and 37 degrees centigrade.In fact, it is the main cause of such deaths.“Extreme temperatures aggravate the chronic diseases, especially those cardiovascular, respiratory And cerebro-vascular, as well as the mental health and the problems related to diabetes”, Kluge specified, adding that the people most at risk in this sense are the elderly people and the pregnant women.

The warning from the World Health Organization comes a few days after yet another appeal launched by the Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres, who, faced with what he defined as an "epidemic" of extreme heat, called for concrete measures to be taken to deal with an "invisible killer" and limit global warming to 1.5 degrees centigrade compared to pre-industrial levels.

The WHO says it is pessimistic about the future

“This is a call that could not be more pertinent, in a region where, over the last twenty years, we have recorded a 30 percent increase in mortality linked to hot episodes, with deaths on the rise in almost all countries subject to monitoring,” added Kluge.

The WHO does not express itself in an optimistic way for the future:according to the Geneva-based UN agency, the number of heat-related victims "will experience a surge" in the coming years, precisely because of the climate changes.