Extreme heat caused by climate change caused approximately 62,000 deaths in Europe in 2024, many of them in southern countries, such as Spain, where high temperatures also favor fires, tropical infectious diseases, allergies and other health problems in vulnerable or exposed populations.
This is explained by the latest ‘Lancet Countdown’ report on health and climate change in Europe, prepared by 65 researchers from 46 academic institutions and the UN. and directed by the University of Heidelberg (Germany) and the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal).
The work, published this Wednesday in The Lancet Public Health, estimates that the heat in Spain caused 130 deaths per million inhabitants between 2015 and 2024, almost triple that of the 1990s, when 47 deaths were recorded, which represents an average increase of 83 deaths per million inhabitants.
The province with the greatest increase in deaths due to heat was Ciudad Real, with more than 18 deaths per million, going from a rate of 8.8 to 27, according to the report.
But the heat in Spain, which is one of the most exposed and vulnerable countries, according to the report, has other consequences that vary depending on local climatic conditions, the age of the population or the adaptation capacity of each region.
Thus, in the province of Tarragona, babies under one year of age endured the greatest number of days of heat (3,404 days of exposure between 2015 and 2024) and where the number of days of exposure to heat waves in those over 65 years of age has grown the most (an increase of 1.9 billion days per person).
Regarding health alerts, that is, “extreme” level days due to heat, the province of Lleida went from an average of 0 to 1 per year in the 1990s.to 8 days a year in the last decade.
For its part, the Canary Islands were – along with Cyprus and Greece – the European region that lost the most hours of outdoor work due to exposure to heat (mainly in sectors such as construction or agriculture).
The extreme heat in our country is making the Spanish climate increasingly suitable for mosquitoes that transmit diseases until recently limited to tropical countries.
Thus, according to the report, in 2024 the province of Valencia registered the greatest climatic suitability in Spain for the transmission of dengue through the Aedes albopictus mosquito, while Cádiz and Seville were more favorable for the Aedes aegypti mosquito, transmitter of Zika.
And in Ceuta, the increase in temperatures led to the greatest increase in the average risk of West Nile virus outbreaks, from a risk of 0.002 (1981-2010) to 0.064 (2015-2024), and with projections of reaching 0.251 in 2025, the report advances.
Another consequence of the heat is the increase in forest fires and the loss of tree mass.
Thus, Melilla was the region where Spain’s fire danger index rose the most, 13.3% (going from 29.2 to 33.1) compared to historical levels, while the greatest forest loss was recorded in Galicia, which between 2016 and 2023 lost 275,600 hectares, the highest figure in Spain.
On this point, the authors warn that this deforestation aggravates climate impacts by reducing the capacity to absorb carbon and increasing vulnerability to heat.
Finally, the report warns of the increase in the allergy season which, like in the rest of the continent, has doubled the days of flowering and pollen concentrations, aggravating the situation for allergy sufferers and asthmatics.
The study highlights that Spain is one of the countries in Europe that attracts the most scientific attention on climate change and that focuses between 10.6% and 11.3% of European scientific publications that analyze the impacts of climate on health.
In view of these data, the study warns that the impacts of floods, droughts, poor air quality and extreme heat require “more geographically focused responses” in Spain.
To this end, it recommends “urgently” strengthening action plans and early warnings against heat in high-risk regions, improving surveillance of infectious diseases where transmission by mosquitoes is increasingly favorable, prioritize firefighting plans, and implement land use strategies that can mitigate all of these interconnected risks.