Even in Europe, the risks of heat waves impact especially on the poorest people

In Europe it is estimated that 50 thousand people will have died from the heat in 2023.The data shows how some categories are more vulnerable than others.

• Heat waves are the extreme weather phenomena that cause the most deaths.
• Even in Europe, poverty represents a risk factor.
• 71 percent of the global workforce is exposed to extreme heat.

“Heat waves are the deadliest type of extreme weather, but they do not leave a trail of destruction or impressive images of devastation.They kill poor, lonely people in rich countries and poor people working outdoors in developing countries.” To say it is Friederike Otto, founder of World Weather Attribution, the leading authority leading the attribution studies.“In the last 13 months there will be thousands and thousands of stories of people dying from the heat, stories that no one will ever tell.”Dramatic words which, however, only reflect reality.A reality in which the climate crisis makes the problems even deeper social and economic inequalities.

What we know about deaths due to heat waves

When the record of the hottest day ever recorded was passed twice in two days, on 21 and 22 July 2024, the United Nations Secretary General António Guterres launched an appeal.Remembering that heat waves are no longer exceptions limited to specific geographical areas, but are increasing in terms of scale, intensity, frequency and duration.We know that this phenomenon is due to anthropogenic climate change and we also know that it will continue to worsen.It is estimated that heat almost kills in the world half a million people a year, a number thirty times higher than that of deaths due to tropical cyclones. In Europe there is talk of 50 thousand deaths in 2023.

Guterres calls for the protection of the most vulnerable sections of the population, starting from children (worldwide, one in four is exposed to frequent heat waves) e elderly people (over the last twenty years, heat-related deaths of over 65s have increased by 85 percent).By 2050, the number of people poor who live in cities and are exposed to extreme heat could increase by 700 percent.These are global estimates, confirmed by other studies conducted on a local scale.A 2020 research for example examines the consequences of heat waves in 17 districts of Madrid, detecting an increase in mortality in only three of them:those with a below-average income.The conclusions of asimilar research conducted in ten Spanish provinces:those who live in the countryside are better protected and there poverty is to be considered as a risk factor.This theme in Europe is only emerging recently;in the United States it has been discussed for some time, following studies that demonstrate how in poor neighborhoods there are fewer trees and higher temperatures.

The risks for students and workers

Even in advanced economies, in fact, in low-income urban neighborhoods homes they are often overcrowded and poorly ventilated.Even when they are equipped with air conditioning, residents cannot afford to keep it on.This has repercussions on quality of their life in many ways.A study by Harvard University for example, he claims that, for every degree Fahrenheit that classroom temperatures increase on an annual basis, the notions learned by students decrease by 1 percent. students.

Another category highly at risk is that of workers, especially those forced to spend their days outdoors or in non-air-conditioned places.According to a recent report byInternational Labor Organization (ILO), The 71 percent of the global workforce it is exposed to extreme heat, with peaks of up to 92.9 percent in Africa, 83.6 percent in Arab countries and 74.7 percent in Asia-Pacific.But it is in the Americas and between Europe and Central Asia that the cases of injuries due to thermal stress have increased by 33.3 and 16.4 percent respectively since 2000.Workers, in fact, found themselves dealing with extreme temperatures for which they were not sufficiently equipped.