The numbers paint a picture of a tragedy. Between June 22 and 28, as the heat wave reached its peak in France, Spain, and the United Kingdom, 10,650 more deaths than the seasonal average were recorded across 27 European countries. This is confirmed by EuroMOMO, the mortality monitoring network supported by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control and the World Health Organization.
The figure is even more striking when viewed in context: in the previous eight weeks, those same countries had recorded an average of about 500 fewer deaths per week than usual. Then, suddenly, the spike. According to experts, there are no other plausible explanations—no ongoing epidemic, no COVID-19 outbreak—other than the heat wave driven by the climate crisis. Lasse Vestergaard, a physician at the Danish Statens Serum Institut, which hosts the network, described such an excess at this time of year as “unusual” and difficult to attribute to anything other than extreme heat.
Older adults pay the highest price
More than 9,000 victims—the vast majority—were 65 years of age or older. Extreme heat kills by causing heatstroke, but above all by exacerbating pre-existing cardiovascular and respiratory conditions: this is why older adults are the most vulnerable group, even though their deaths are often not formally linked to high temperatures.
EuroMOMO does not publish data for individual countries, but it reported that France and Belgium were the only two countries to record “very high” excess mortality in the last week of June. For Belgium, according to the public health institute Sciensano, this is the worst figure ever recorded during a heat wave since historical data began being collected in 2000.
The Signature of Climate Change
Attribution studies show that climate plays a role—and a significant one at that. Researchers at World Weather Attribution have concluded that a heat wave of this intensity, so early in the season, would have been nearly impossible in a world without human-caused emissions. Global warming has pushed temperatures 3–4 degrees above what they would otherwise have been.
A study published Monday by Imperial College London, the Met Office, and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine estimated that, in England and Wales alone, the heat waves in May and June caused 2,700 deaths: 42% of these deaths are attributable to the rise in temperatures caused by climate change.
An emergency bound to happen again
The heat wave at the end of June didn’t just claim lives: it disrupted power supplies, closed schools, and shattered temperature records across half the continent. And the EuroMOMO data could even be revised upward in the coming weeks, as new national statistics become available.
The message to European governments is clear: heat waves are now the deadliest extreme weather event, and they will become increasingly frequent and intense. Prevention plans, measures to protect the elderly, and urban adaptation can no longer be put off. Deadly heat is not an anomaly— it is the new climate with which Europe must learn to live.
