Shielding Europe from Extreme Heat Mortality
Heat Waves Have Killed Tens of Thousands Annually in Recent Years
Imagine stepping outside on a summer afternoon in a European city and feeling the heat rise from the pavement. The shade of a tree suddenly becomes precious. A glass of cold water feels like a small luxury. Picture an elderly woman on the third floor of a poorly ventilated building, closing her shutters against the sun and hoping it will be enough to get her through the night.
For millions of Europeans, extreme heat is no longer just an uncomfortable part of summer. It’s a growing threat to life.
One study, published in Nature Medicine, estimated that nearly 63,000 people died from heat-related causes across Europe in the summer of 2024. The World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) European office says more than 200,000 people in the region have died from heat over the past four years.
“Heat waves are no longer one-off freak events. They are recurring crises,” Dr. Hans Henri P. Kluge, WHO regional director for Europe, said in June, warning that they’re becoming more frequent, stronger, and longer-lasting.
Europe is warming at more than twice the global average rate due to several reasons:
Changing weather patterns produce more frequent high-pressure systems and heat domes.
Parts of Europe extend into or are close to the Arctic, which is the fastest-warming region on Earth.
Ironically, Europe’s stricter air pollution standards have reduced the concentration of airborne particulates that used to reflect the sun’s heat back into space.
Progressively less snow cover in recent years has allowed sunlight to be absorbed by the ground instead of being reflected back into space.
While all these may be true, the WHO stresses that many of the region’s heat-related deaths can be prevented.
So how does a continent keep its people safe without putting an air conditioner in every home, school, office, and shop, threatening to bend the electric grid to the breaking point?
Keeping Heat Out, Letting Nature In
One answer starts before any cooling machine is switched on: Stop buildings from heating up so quickly in the first place. Shutters, awnings, thick insulation, well-placed windows, and designs that let fresh air move through a space can all help keep heat out, and they matter most after dark, since a building that soaks up heat all day can stay uncomfortably warm long after the sun goes down.
This is especially true for Europe’s older buildings, many of which were built to hold on to heat through cold winters, not to shed it in hot summers. None of this means air conditioning has no place. It just means a building shouldn’t have to lean on it for every degree of summer heat.
Parks, urban forests, and roofs covered in plants, known as green roofs, measurably lower temperatures and support people’s physical and mental health.
Nature can do some of the same work and often more gently. Trees cast shade, and plants release moisture that cools the air around them. Parks, urban forests, and roofs covered in plants, known as green roofs, measurably lower temperatures and support people’s physical and mental health.
A 2026 European Commission project shows how far this can go. Three schools in Spain and Portugal took part in a trial, adding green roofs, plant-covered walls, and shaded walkways across an area of nearly two soccer fields. At the Spanish school, indoor temperatures fell by 4°C to 6°C (about 7°F to 11°F), and electricity used for cooling dropped by more than 11%.
“Nature is a powerful ally in energy conservation,” Miguel Vega, who led the project, told the European Commission.
The lesson isn’t that every building needs a green roof. It’s that cooling can be woven into the places in which people already live, learn, and work.
Preparing before the Heat Arrives
Preparing communities for hot summer months is important. The WHO’s guidance calls for early alerts about rising temperatures, checking in on older adults and people who live alone, moving outdoor work to cooler hours, and opening public cooling spaces on the worst days. These simple human acts add up to real protection.
“Prevention works! We know this because we can measure it,” Kluge said, pointing to estimates that without the precautions already in place, heat-related deaths in 2023 would have been around 80% higher and roughly twice as high among people 80 and older.
“The days of low AC penetration in Europe are coming to an end,” wrote Helge Brinkmann.
It’s also worth remembering that not every family can afford to run an air conditioner around the clock. The European Environment Agency has flagged growing concern over who can afford to stay cool as summer electricity bills climb, a gap that any real solution will need to close.
And Then There’s Air Conditioning
As Europe keeps getting hotter, air conditioning will likely become a bigger part of daily life, whether people are entirely comfortable with that or not. It’s still far less common in that region than in the United States, Japan, or South Korea, but that’s changing quickly.
In 1990, fewer than 7 million room air conditioners were in use across the European Union (EU). By 2020, that number had grown to more than 57 million, and the European Commission expects it to roughly double again by 2030. The energy used for cooling is climbing just as fast: In 2024, households across the EU used twice as much energy for cooling as they did in 2018.
“The days of low AC penetration in Europe are coming to an end,” wrote Helge Brinkmann, a Boston Consulting Group partner who tracks Europe’s energy markets, in 2025, pointing to a string of brutal heat waves as the reason why. In plain terms, air conditioning is becoming much more common across Europe.
Europe’s best bet is probably to do two things at once: Build homes that need less cooling in the first place, and make whatever cooling is used as efficient as it can be.
That growth brings its own challenge. When a heat wave hits, millions of people switch on cooling at more or less the same moment, straining the electrical system that powers homes and businesses right when the grid is needed most. However, better, more efficient equipment can ease that strain. Europe’s best bet is probably to do two things at once: build homes that need less cooling in the first place, and make whatever cooling is used as efficient as it can be.
Impact of the 2026 World Cup
There’s also a more human, less predictable question in the mix. The 2026 FIFA World Cup drew a record 6,810,966 spectators into stadiums across 16 host cities in Canada, Mexico, and the United States, more than the 2018 and 2022 tournaments combined.
Prior to the tournament, an estimated 1.24 million international visitors were projected to attend, so it’s likely hundreds of thousands of Europeans came to the US at that time.
Before the tournament, researchers warned that about a quarter of the World Cup games would take place in cities known for hot summer temperatures. Climate scientist Friederike Otto, cofounder of the research group World Weather Attribution, warned that fans in the stands could face real health risks, since, unlike the players on the field, they wouldn’t be “taken care of by a lot of medical doctors.”
However, visitors soon found themselves in fully air-conditioned stadiums, restaurants, and hotel rooms—a striking first taste of the centrality of cooling to everyday comfort in America.
Whether these experiences will change what Europeans want in their own homes, no one can say yet, and it would be too simple to credit one summer of travel with reshaping a continent’s habits. But Europe’s appetite for cool interiors was already growing before the opening whistle: Demand for cooling was 25% higher in 2024 than in 2020. If that trend keeps climbing, a summer spent chasing relief from America’s heat may turn out to be one small, memorable moment inside a much bigger change.
Europe doesn’t have to choose between nature and technology. Air conditioning can save lives when temperatures turn dangerous. But trees, shade, smarter building design, cooler roofs, and early warnings can shrink how often that cooling is needed, and help make sure the people who need relief most can actually get it.
The goal was never just to make rooms colder. It’s to build a Europe where people and the planet can both stay a little cooler, together.
*Deborah Harvey is a writer and researcher focused on science, technology, sustainability, and global innovation. Her work explores how emerging ideas shape the future of energy, infrastructure, and the environment.
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