As Asad Rehman, chief executive of Friends of the Earth, told the Guardian, the heat “throws a grenade into every vulnerability you already have”.
The sharp divergence in experiences should set off alarm bells for policymakers across Europe, the world’s fastest-warming continent. As my colleague Ajit Niranjan pointed out in a climate crisis Q&A this week: “Each year heat kills 10 times more people than murderers in Europe.”
The point was underlined by recent research suggesting that the combination of extreme temperatures and inequality could be responsible for more than 100,000 deaths a year in Europe.
Instead, the heatwave laid bare just how unprepared much of Europe is for extreme heat, with most people left to their own devices to cope. A fuller picture of the consequences of this most recent heatwave is now beginning to emerge, as France’s national public health agency said about 1,000 additional deaths were recorded between 24 and 27 June, while in Spain, a public institute suggested that the heatwave could be linked to more than 600 deaths.
It’s a bleak display of how the climate crisis is exacerbating inequalities, argued the leftwing Democracy in Europe Movement 2025, launched by Greece’s former finance minister Yanis Varoufakis in a stark social media post.
“This heat is not only a climate emergency, but it is also a class war,” it said. “The rich burn the planet, then buy air conditioning, private pools and second homes while workers are left in overheated flats, unsafe jobs, failed public services and burning cities.”
