The EXHAUSTION team has published a paper in Nature Medicine! The study “Estimating future heat-related and cold-related mortality under climate change, demographic and adaptation scenarios in 854 European cities” shows that unless strong mitigation and adaptation measures are implemented, most European cities will experience a noticeable increase in deaths due to climate change.
Previous assessments of the health impact of mortality due to either warm or cold temperatures in Europe indicated that the mortality burden attributable to cold is much larger than for heat.
Questions remain as to whether climate change can result in a net decrease in temperature-related mortality, as temperature increases and thus reduces the number of deaths related to cold temperatures.
Photo: Gunnell E. Sandanger/CICERO
In this study, we estimated how climate change could affect future heat-related and cold-related mortality in 854 European urban areas, under several climate, demographic and adaptation scenarios.
We showed that, with no adaptation to heat, the increase in heat-related deaths consistently exceeds any decrease in cold-related deaths across all considered scenarios in Europe.
Under the scenario with the lowest mitigation and adaptation measures (SSP3-7.0), we estimate a net death burden due to climate change increasing by 50% and cumulating over 2,300 000 climate change-related deaths between 2015 and 2099.
Even in scenarios where high levels of adaptation to heat stress are assumed, the net effect would be positive – meaning that the increase in heat-related deaths would outweigh the decrease in cold-related deaths.
Regional differences suggest a slight net decrease of death rates in Northern European countries but high vulnerability of the Mediterranean region and Eastern Europe areas.
Unless strong mitigation and adaptation measures are implemented, most European cities should experience an increase of their temperature-related mortality burden.
The study, based on a comprehensive assessment of 854 European cities, provides clear evidence that net mortality will increase even under the mildest climate change scenario. Our analyses indicate that the net health burden will increase substantially under more extreme warming scenarios and that this trend can only be reversed with implausibly strong levels of adaptation in urban populations.
This demonstrates the potential health benefits linked with the implementation of stringent mitigation strategies to strongly reduce greenhouse gas emissions as well as adaptation strategies aimed at the most vulnerable countries and population groups.
The full article can be read here.
The authors of the paper are Pierre Masselot, Malcolm N. Mistry, Shilpa Rao, Veronika Huber, Ana Monteiro, Evangelia Samoli, Massimo Stafoggia, Francesca de’Donato, David Garcia-Leon, Juan-Carlos Ciscar, Luc Feyen, Alexandra Schneider, Klea Katsouyanni, Ana Maria Vicedo-Cabrera, Kristin Aunan & Antonio Gasparrini.
The paper has been featured in The Guardian:
