Study links some 32,000 deaths in Europe’s cities to climate change in summer 2026
London researchers estimate more than 50,000 heat-related deaths in 854 cities, more than in any summer since 2000. Germany accounted for about 6,300.
Archive image · Photo: NASA Earth Observatory image by Joshua Stevens, using GEOS-5 data from the Global Modeling and Assimilation Office at NA / Wikimedia Commons, Public domain (cropped and resized)
Summer 2026 was the deadliest hot summer on record in Europe’s cities, according to an estimate by the Grantham Institute at Imperial College London and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM). A team led by lead author Clair Barnes modeled 854 urban areas in 30 countries (EU states, Britain, Norway, Switzerland), home to about 40 percent of the population. For late May through August, it calculated more than 50,000 heat-related deaths. The researchers attribute about 65 percent, or more than 32,000, to human-caused climate change. To do so, they compared actual temperatures with a world without warming. In 2003 that share was 42 percent, and in 2022 it was 59 percent, according to the study.
The highest estimated tolls were in Italy (13,303), France (7,268), Spain (6,824), Germany (6,340) and Britain (4,354), Euronews reported. About a third of the deaths occurred during the heat wave from June 17 to July 1. Around half of those who died were over 85, and about 6,000 were younger than 65. Previous highs were about 29,000 (2022) and 28,000 (2003), according to Euronews.
The figures are model estimates, not counted deaths; official statistics are not yet available. The study on summer 2026 has been accepted for publication but not yet published, according to Inside Climate News, while a companion study on the summers of 2000 to 2025 appeared in “Nature Health.” The reports do not give uncertainty ranges. Co-author Pierre Masselot (LSHTM) called the summer another “dramatic reminder” that climate change is “everyone’s problem.”