‘We Were Warned,’ Says WHO Chief as More Than 1,300+ Dead Across Europe From Climate-Driven Heat Wave

This article was originally published in Common Dreams under Creative Commons 3.0 license. Read the original article. Contact: editor@commondreams.org

By Jon Queally

The head of the World Health Organization on Sunday said the deadly heat wave now boiling across Europe—which French authorities say caused more than 1,000 deaths last week alone—is the predicted and horrifying result that climate scientists and human rights advocates have been warning about for decades.

In a social post Sunday, WHO secretary-general Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said, “Driven by climate change and global warming, the phenomenon of the ‘once-in-a-generation’ heatwave is now occurring nearly annual. We were warned.”

Citing over 1,300 excess deaths across Europe in the last week—as temperatures broke records in nation after nation—Tedros added that “heat stress is often called the ‘silent killer’—and European homes, workplaces and schools were not built for these temperatures.”

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“Europe is the fastest-warming continent on Earth, heating at twice the global average,” he said. “Right now 150 million people are living under extreme heat, hundreds have died, schools are shut, grids are buckling.”

According to the Associated Press:

On Sunday, authorities in France said over 1,000 excess deaths attributable to the heat were recorded last week, with at least 100 or more over the previous 24 hours.

The threat of extreme heat related to the climate crisis is not only in Europe.

In 2024, a peer-reviewed study in the Journal of the American Medical Association showed that heat-related deaths in the United States rose 117% between 1999 and 2023.

Last year, a joint analysis by The Guardian and Pro Publica estimated that the industry-friendly policies of US President Donald Trump could result in the otherwise preventable deaths of 1.3 million people worldwide over the next 80 years, most of them among poor people in nations that did very little to cause the planetary crisis driven by the consumption of fossil fuels.

See also: How Climate Change Has Hit Chambal's Beekeepers And Food Systems

In a comment last week, as the deadly heatwave made international headlines, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) was among those who pointed his finger directly at Trump for his vicious policies related to energy and climate.

On Friday, the climate group 350.org said the polluting companies, namely those in the coal, oil, and gas industry, should be made to pay for the deaths and damage they have caused and continue to cause.

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