Heat-related mortality in Europe has surged over the last couple of decades.
As Statista's Katharina Buchholz reports, according to the latest available data published by the Lancet Countdown 2025 Report, between 2012 and 2021, 5.5 people per 100,000 population died of heat-related causes per year on the continent.
This is almost double the annual rate observed between 1992 and 2021.
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Similarly rapid surges were observed over the same time period in Asia-Pacific as well as in the Americas.
However, heat deaths stayed on a lower level in these regions and reached only an annual 3.4 and 2.1 in 100,000, respectively, during the last decade.
All three continents in question have an aging population, making heatwaves more deadly as it is older people who predominantly succumb to heat-related causes.
But Europe is also less prepared than other continents for a changing climate as its many temperate regions have not built for the heat and have traditionally neither been equipped for i
