Summer in Europe – that was once a time of dolce vita. A phase of carefreeness on breezy beaches and clear lakes, in the mountains or relaxed cities – longed for by generations all year round. Today, the untroubled summer atmosphere is no longer guaranteed. Today, summer can turn into a fight for survival when the scorching heat brings the circulation to a standstill, when forests burn or tropical pathogens spread. “Climate change is not a distant future scenario; it is here and it kills,” is the conclusion of a report published by international scientists Journal Lancet Public Health have published.
For the so-called Lancet Countdown Report, the team analyzed the impact of climate change in Europe and what is currently being done about it using 42 indicators. Most show a trend for the worse. Above all, the development of temperatures. They are rising twice as fast in Europe as the global average, the report says. In the past ten years there have been 45 percent more hot days than in the previous decade. At the same time, more people died as a result of the heat; The rate increased by 17 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants during this period. In the summer of 2022 alone, an estimated 60,000 people died due to high temperatures. Western Europe is most at risk, the report states. There are a particularly large number of vulnerable people living here: older people, those with previous illnesses, but also residents of large cities that heat up quickly in the warm season.
And this is also what summer in Europe now means in many places: living indoors. Due to the increased temperatures, countless children can no longer play outside for longer and longer periods of the day, older people have to forego walks and athletes have to forego their training. This is more than annoying, because a lack of exercise promotes civilization diseases. Nutrition can also suffer indirectly from the high temperatures. According to the authors, in 2021 almost twelve million Europeans were no longer able to eat sufficiently well at times because heat or drought made it difficult for them to obtain or prepare high-quality food.
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As the climate changes, the risks of infectious diseases also increase. More and more coastal areas now offer conditions in which vibrios thrive. The Bacteria multiply in the warm salt water along beaches and can cause serious, sometimes fatal, wound infections. Over the past 40 years, potential vibrio areas have expanded by 136 coastal kilometers per year.
The bacteria are a growing danger, especially for the northern parts of Europe, as are ticks. These carriers of Lyme disease and tick-borne encephalitis are also finding more and more areas in which to thrive here. The time in which the animals are active is also increasing. In southern Europe, on the other hand, the risk of diseases transmitted by mosquitoes is increasing. These include West Nile fever, chikungunya and dengue.
All of these effects do not affect everyone equally. Southern Europe is at greater risk from most hazards, including extreme heat, droughts and forest fires. But income class also has an impact on how vulnerable people are. People who are economically worse off tend to suffer more from the consequences of global warming. For example, you have fewer options to adapt to rising temperatures. “At the same time, they contribute much less to the climate crisis,” says Maike Voss, director of the Center for Planetary Health Policy think tank, in a press release: “In order to protect themselves on extremely hot days, 16 percent of European households used air conditioning in 2021 – and that was the case Together they emit as much CO₂ as the whole of Bulgaria.”
Most healthcare systems are not really prepared
At the same time, European countries are also contributing to global injustices by outsourcing problems caused by their consumerism to other parts of the world, lead author Kim van Daalen of the Barcelona Supercomputing Center says, according to a press release. These regions then suffer from environmental pollution that arises from the production of the goods that are consumed in Europe.
According to the report, almost all European countries have health systems that are not well equipped to deal with the effects of global warming. Many countries lack heat protection or other emergency plans, as well as early warning systems for weather disasters. Adjustments in urban development, for example, are also inadequate across the continent. The same applies to the willingness to take action against further warming of the climate.
“The new report shows us that the health risks associated with climate change are increasing in Europe, but that measures to adapt to current impacts and mitigate future impacts are still lagging,” says Joacim Rocklöv from the University of Heidelberg, who is one of the authors of the report Reports matter.
There was not enough data for all of the indicators that the researchers examined; some of the statements are based on calculations. Nevertheless, according to Maike Voss, the following message can be drawn from it: The report provides drastic evidence that further hesitation in climate protection and adaptation is not an option.