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CLIMATE CRISIS

Europe could soon face ‘nearly 100,000 deaths a year linked to extreme heat’

More than 61,000 people died due to the heat during Europe's record-breaking summer last year, a study said on Monday which called for more to be done to protect against even deadlier heatwaves expected in the coming years.

Europe could soon face 'nearly 100,000 deaths a year linked to extreme heat'
A pharmacy sign displaying the temperature of 44C amid a heatwave in Nantes, France in July 2022 (Photo by Loic VENANCE / AFP)

The world’s fastest warming continent experienced its hottest summer on record in 2022, as countries were hit by blistering heatwaves, crop-withering droughts and devastating wildfires.

The European Union’s statistics agency Eurostat had reported an unusually high number of excess deaths over the summer, but the amount directly linked to the heat had not been previously quantified.

A team of researchers looked at data on temperature and mortality from 2015 to 2022 for 823 regions across 35 European countries, covering a total of 543 million people.

The researchers from the Barcelona Institute for Global Health and France’s health research institute INSERM used models to predict the deaths attributable to temperature for each region in every week of 2022’s summer.

They estimated that 61,672 deaths were linked to the heat between May 30 and September 4 last year, according to the study published in the journal Nature Medicine.

A particularly intense heatwave in the week of July 18-24 caused more than 11,600 deaths alone, the study said.

“It is a very high number of deaths,” said Hicham Achebak, an INSERM researcher and study co-author.

“We knew the effect of heat on mortality after 2003, but with this analysis, we see that there is still a lot of work that needs to be done to protect the population,” he told AFP.

More than 70,000 excess deaths were recorded in 2003 during one of the worst heatwaves in European history.

Women and over-80s vulnerable

Last year France recorded the biggest rise in heat compared to its previous summer average, with a jump of 2.43C, the study said.

Switzerland was not far behind with a 2.30C rise, followed by Italy with 2.28C and Hungary with 2.13C.

Italy had the highest death toll linked to the heat with 18,010, followed by Spain with 11,324 and Germany with 8,173.

The majority of deaths were of people over the age of 80, the study said.

Around 63 percent of those who died due to the heat were women, the analysis said.

The difference became more stark over the age of 80, when women had a mortality rate 27 percent higher than men.

Previous research has shown that Europe is warming at twice the global average.

While the world has warmed an average of nearly 1.2C since the mid-1800s, last year Europe was around 2.3C hotter than pre industrial times.

Unless something is done to protect people against rising temperatures, by 2030 Europe will face an average of more than 68,000 heat-related deaths every summer, the new study estimated.

By 2040, there would be an average of more than 94,000 heat-linked deaths — and by 2050, the number could rise to over 120,000, the researchers said.

“These predictions are based on the current level of vulnerability and future temperatures,” Achebak said.

“If we take very effective measures, that vulnerability can be reduced,” he added.

Raquel Nunes, a health and climate expert at the UK’s Warwick University not involved in the research, said the study “highlights the urgent need for action to protect vulnerable populations from the impacts of heatwaves”.

Chloe Brimicombe, a climate scientist at Austria’s University of Graz, said it “demonstrates that heat prevention strategies need to be re-evaluated, with gender and age especially in mind”.

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VENICE

Italian scientists predict parts of Venice will be underwater by 2150

New research by Italian scientists estimated that large areas of Venice including the famous Saint Mark’s Square will be submerged by 2150 due to rising sea levels and the city’s sinking foundations.

Italian scientists predict parts of Venice will be underwater by 2150

A new study carried out by scientists at Italy’s National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV) found that tide levels in the Venetian lagoon are rising at a rate of approximately half a centimetre per year on average. 

Researchers predicted that the rise will result in some areas of the main island being permanently underwater by 2150, with Saint Mark’s Square forecast to be constantly submerged by 70 centimetres of water. 

The exact increase rates weren’t the same across the lagoon, with figures ranging from 4.22 millimetres at the Venice Lido to nearly 6 millimetres in Chioggia, in the southern section of the lagoon.

The study, which combined records from Venice’s tidal centre with satellite data on land subsidence, also concluded that the western side of the city, which includes the Santa Croce, San Polo and Dorsoduro districts, will be among the worst-affected areas.

INGV researchers pointed to rising sea levels in the Venetian lagoon as being emblematic of a wider phenomenon registered across the entire Mediterranean sea, whose levels have increased by some 18 centimetres since the beginning of the 20th century.  

“Sea level increase, particularly if accelerated locally by subsidence, is leading to increasingly severe and widespread coastal erosion, beach retreat and marine flooding with very significant environmental and socioeconomic impacts for populations,” INGV researcher Marco Anzidei said.

READ ALSO: Italy to suffer ‘exceptionally hot’ temperatures this summer

Venice has experienced increasingly frequent severe flooding in recent years as the city was hit by some 58 high tides (acque alte) of 110 centimetres or more between 2019 and 2023 – more than twice the number recorded between 2009 and 2013.

A 187-centimetre acqua alta – the second-highest tide in Venice’s history – caused the death of two people and hundreds of millions of euros in damage in November 2019.

A long-planned system of mobile barriers aimed at protecting the city from high tides became operational in late 2020 and has since been activated on over 80 occasions. 

But the MOSE sluice gates, which are placed at the lagoon’s main entry points and raised whenever high tides hit, have long been criticised by experts as just a short-term fix to rising sea levels.

READ ALSO: ‘Extreme’ climate blamed for world’s worst wine harvest in 62 years

A 2021 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted a rise in the mean regional sea level of 28-55 centimetres by 2100 in their most optimistic scenario, and 63-101 centimetres in the worst-case scenario.

Experts have forecast that, in either case, the barriers will have to be raised so frequently that they will endanger the survival of Venice’s port industry and the lagoon will gradually turn into a marsh, which may ultimately result in the loss of many local wildlife species.

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