The combination of more frequent scorching episodes, an aging population and increased urbanization makes Europeans more vulnerable to high temperatures, especially in the south of the continent, underlined the European Environment Agency (Aee)
Le Monde with AFP
If nothing is done to prevent it, 90,000 Europeans could die each year because of the heat waves by the end of the century in the largest health threat linked to the climate, warned the agency on Wednesday, November 8 European Environment (AEE). “Without adaptation measures, and as part of a planetary warming scenario of 3 ° C by 2,100, 90,000 Europeans could die following heat waves each year,” noted the AEE.
With a warming of 1.5 ° C targeted by the Paris Agreement This figure is reduced to 30,000 deaths per year, she underlines based on a study published in 2020. Between 1980 to 2020, Some 129,000 Europeans died of hot, according to figures, with a strong acceleration during the recent period.
Risk and degradation factors are known: the increased frequency of
Scorma episodes, the development of urbanization which vulnerabilizes Europeans, especially in the south of the old continent, without forgetting, the target, more fragile, of an aging population.
15,000 dead In 2022
Monday, the European Health Organization (WHO) Office announced that at least 15,000 deaths in Europe were directly linked to the serious heat waves during the summer of 2022. In addition to the repeated heat waves, Climate change makes the region increasingly conducive to the emergence and transmission of infectious diseases.
Certain types of mosquitoes, vectors of malaria and dengue, stay longer in Europe, notes the AEE. The rise in temperatures also promotes proliferation in bacteria water, especially in the Baltic Sea of Vibrio bacteria, the best known is responsible for cholera.
Prevention and watch measures must reduce these morbid health consequences.
“It is necessary to implement a wide range of solutions, in particular effective action plans against heat, ecologization of cities, the design and construction of appropriate buildings and the adaptation of schedules and conditions of conditions work “, estimates the report according to which a large part of the deaths linked to the heat are avoidable in Europe.