The study appeared in the April issue of the journal The Lancet Planetary Healthbut its conclusions concerning France and its capital had so far remained relatively inconspicuous until a journalist from the magazine Point make an article out of it. ” Paris, the first city in Europe where you risk dying of heat states the title.
By diving into the study, we realize that this announcement is not misleading. “The city that experiences the highest relative risk regarding heat is Paris”, reports the text of The Lancetwhich compared the capitals of 30 European countries (the 27 countries of the European Union plus Norway, Switzerland and the United Kingdom) and analyzed excess mortality data on hot and cold for the inhabitants of 854 cities, between 2000 and 2019.
More than 20,000 deaths linked to heat waves
According The Lancet, excess cold-related mortality causes more than 203,000 deaths per year in these 30 countries, and more than 20,000 for heat. In Paris, the risk for people aged over 85 is multiplied by 1.6 with regard to high temperatures, compared to comfortable temperatures. “This can be explained by the fact that it is an agglomeration very exposed to the urban heat island effect (ICU), which causes a strong rise in temperature in summer”, comments in Point Pierre Masselot, one of the authors.
This risk could increase even more with regard to heat, due to global warming. This is why the Parisian elected officials worked for six months on 85 recommendations to adapt the city, with in particular the creation of a Great Hot Plan, on the model of the Great Cold Plan.